In conversations with clients I’m often asked for ways in which a business might differentiate itself from the competition. I nearly always say avoid competing solely on price because you’ll enter a race to the bottom. Price is not as often the main factor that customers use to make a purchasing decision as you might think. A lot of other factors come into play that make a complicated picture. But one key differentiator is definitely Customer Service.
By Customer Service I don’t really mean the quality of a support line, or the weight of paper you use to reply to a customer enquiry. I’m talking about the touch-points in which a customer interacts with your brand to get something done. Any interaction is an opportunity for great customer service, whether you meet that customer in person or not.
Poor customer service is all around us. Banks are notoriously bad for using offshore call centres staffed with people who are typically very difficult to understand, or are very bad at understanding the caller. On a sensitive phone call involving personal finance, this is a bad mix. It’s an obvious customer service faux-pas, and it’s easy to see why businesses that employ this kind of penny-pinching tactic get a bad rep amongst consumers.
Mediocre customer service is most prevalent. Service without a smile is the norm for 99% of transactions I encounter in person, over the phone and online. Long, poorly managed queues at Ikea are a great example, the 7.20PM over-crowded first offpeak train from London Euston to Milton Keynes is another, and the giggling group of teenagers employed as staff at Topshop are a good example too.
Good customer service is much harder to come by. For me, this involves a fast interaction between me and a business in which a transaction (not necessarily monetary, it could be an information exchange) happens without a significant problem - or failing that, any problem is resolved with quickly, efficiently, without me having to push for it, and with a smile and apology to follow. Today, buy your sandwich from a Pret A Manger, you’ll find an awesome selection (no matter what time of the day - they keep up with demand) and staff that will please-and-thankyou you to death… good customer service. It makes lunch go down that bit smoother.
Great customer service is something altogether more difficult and therefore much rarer. BT employ the services of a disastrously poor quality (offshore) call centre to handle broadband support enquiries. But their @BTCare team provide excellent service via Twitter and email. If you want something done, talk to those guys, because you’ll feel confident that they’ll handle it - and they will. They’ll even write back to you to let you know what’s going on with your problem, and they’ll do their best to find you a refund for any connection loss too. For me, great customer service involves a degree of advocacy on the part of a staff member at the business in question - to act on behalf of the customer to get a problem fixed or to get something done, and to deal with that personally. Advocacy is not achieved by passing a caller from one department to the next. It is not achieved by using stock responses or automated emails. It is achieved by hard work, good staffing levels, and cash spent where it counts - on building a strong relationship between business and customer.
Right now businesses have a huge advantage over the past - social media provides a way that you can interact with your customers (or prospects) instantly and prolifically. Use it! Communicate, reciprocate, share, bugfix, troubleshoot, and well - just chat.
Featured photo courtesy of Amber De Bruin.
