Customer Service Definition

by Mohamed Bhimji on August 14, 2009
in Random Madness

What is the definition of Customer Service? Is it simply helping a customer? Is it giving the customer a positive experience? Is it answering their questions?

How is this:

Customer service is an organization’s ability to supply their customers’ wants and needs

How about this one:

According to the ACA Group customer service is the ability of an organization to constantly and consistently give the customer what they want and need.

I think that that definition, from the ACA Group is accurate.

You want to be able to give consistent service to your customers.

On my team, I have a few individuals that shine all the time. They consistently deliver high quality service to our merchants. They also consistently recieve letters, and e-mails from those same customers about the quality and level of service that they have been able to deliver.

Maybe they get a commendation one for outstanding customer service – fluke. A second time – they got lucky. But how about the third, fourth, fifth… well, you get the idea. These people are good. They ensure every i is dotted and every t crossed. They don’t leave anything to chance. They check everything.

Why don’t the others?

Tough question to answer. Some perhaps were, and are now tired of the constant level of effort required day-in and day-out over the last few years. Some became agents because of the flexibility it provided, others because they didn’t further their education and possibly others because they no longer enjoy the work. Regardless of the reason you will always have people that shine and others that may glimmer every now and then.

Shine VS Glimmer – this is not just in Customer Service, but in any business area. When I was actively involved in Information Technology (IT) there were colleagues that always went above and beyond what they had to do. Their code was always “perfect” – they ran through their test cases in an efficient manner. They would find shortcuts and tips to help make their jobs easier. They would spend time looking at the best practices. They were excited about their work, and they enjoyed what they did.

Then you had the programmers, systems analysts, and even project managers and business managers that didn’t really care. They did just enough to keep themselves above the bar. You know – they are coasters.

I’ve seen this in Accounting and even in more technical areas of IT. I know someone that spends thousands of dollars (of his own money) to stay on top of the latest hardware and technology so that he can tackle anything anyone throws at him. He’s good. He’s very good. But he lacks people skills, that gets him. When something doesn’t work, and he knows its the clients fault, he lets them know. Not good.

How can you develop Customer Service agents of that calibre? It’s difficult. Lets face it, Customer Service isn’t for everyone. You’re asking someone to spend at least 7 hours per day on the phone (the other time is spent for breaks and personal development or other activities that are required). If you are in a high volume call center, your agent could be taking 10-20 calls per hour. If you’re in a low volume call center, perhaps 20-40 calls per shift. Or you could be providing complex support, which requires you to handle 1-2 callers per day but each call could take days to resolve.

Good customer service needs to happen consistently.

The ability to consistently deliver high quality customer service is what will set your company apart.

In my case we provide support to merchants that operate point of sale activation terminals. The paper has jammed. The terminal will not connect. They don’t have pricing set-up. Their IP connection doesn’t work. While the problems sound easy, it can take up to 30 minutes to resolve some issues. Our call center also provides support for financial products and gift cards – that adds a lot more complexity to what the team does, though I’ve approached support differently for these products.

In order to provide positive consistent customer service you need several things in place:

Solid training
Efficient distribution of product knowledge
Knowledge base to track “random” bits of information
Methods to keep the team in the loop with product launches
Sufficient technology in place to ensure that processes are being followed

When you look at the list above – and by no means is this a complete list – you can clearly see that there is a cost associated with running a customer service center. When you look at companies like ICBC (Insurance Corporation of British Columbia) whose Customer Service group wins awards and scores high on exit polls from their customers you know that the company and its executives have decided to stand behind what they do. ICBC isn’t the only company – there are others out there that score high on the providing good service; I mention ICBC because I had a chance to visit their call center and speak with their employees.

Some companies opt to farm out their customer service — I can think of a Canadian telecommunications provider that did and speaking from personal experience, it was the wrong thing to do. I no longer make use of their services due to the total lack of professionalism that farmed out company had and the manner in which they treated their customers. I wasn’t the only one. When you keyed in the company name you would find many complaints about their service.

Many companies in the telecommunications field are farming out (the right term is outsourcing) their customer service. Provided the put in place proper processes, then service will succeed, and customers will be happy. But as soon as those processes fail, service also fails.

Good service doesn’t just happen, you and your organization need to make it happen by putting the resources in place to ensure that you can provide quality consistent service.

Upcoming posts on Customer Service: