Business Record - Iowa Biz

Selling Through Service; Serving Through Sales

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Our group will often perform third-party quality assessment projects (e.g. "Your call may be monitored for training purposes") for sales teams as well as service teams. There are a couple of lessons I've learned  about sales in the contact center over the past 16 years.

First of all, sales people and service people are generally different people. Great customer service representatives are usually those who like to fix things. They love solving peoples problems and are motivated by the emotional lift they get helping others out. Great sales people are motivated by competition, the hunt, the reward and the adrenaline rush of closing the sale. When you have a sales person in a primary service role or a service person in a primary sales role, you're going to have problems.

However, the other thing I've learned is that service people can learn to sell, and sales people can learn to serve. It's really a matter of motivation. Service people tend to sell when they are convinced that the product or service they are offering the customer could be a real benefit. Offering the add-on product or service is actually an additional way of serving the customer. With that motivation, a service person merely needs to learn the techniques of how to conversationally broach the subject with the customer at the appropriate time.

I've heard a lot of great sales people over the years. The best seem to understand that courteously and personably serving the customer is actually a viable means to increasing their sales. Customers tend to return to sales people and businesses with whom they feel they have a positive service relationship. When a sale person provides great service, the customer will generally respond over time with loyal, return business.

The sales person's motivation for serving may be different than the service person, but when they learn techniques of good service and understand how it will help their bottom line, they can usually be trained to do it well.

Managing to the Rule and Not the Exceptions

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Any business that wants to deliver a consistent customer service experience must, at some point, define how they want to approach customers and then train their associates to deliver to that expectation. Satisfying the greatest number of customers means managing to the general rule of what your customers desire and expect when they walk into or call your establishment.

One of the most frustrating realities of customer service is that there are exceptions for every rule. For every eight people who appreciate you making sure you've answered all their questions before hanging up, there are always two who irritably growl (or think) "NO! If I needed anything else I'd TELL YOU!"

If you manage your service delivery to please the two, you're not going to satisfy the eight. While it's a lovely thought that we can please all the people all the time, it's simply not possible. Winning the customer satisfaction race is largely about having good intelligence about your customers (I mean all of your customers, not just the ones who like to play the follow-up survey sweepstakes). Not only do you need to understand the dimensions of service for which the the majority of customers will reward you, but you also need to understand the dimensions of service for which customers will penalize you.

Armed with this information, you go about building your service delivery system to satisfy the greatest number of customers knowing that there will always be exceptional customers to the rules you've set up.

The Best and Worst in Customer Service

Each year, MSN Money releases its top 10 list of the best and worst in customer service. Here are this year's winners and losers.

The Hall of Shame

1. AOL
2. Bank of America
3. Comcast
4. Sprint/Nextel
5. Capital One
6. Dish Network

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7. Time Warner Cable
8. Wells Fargo
9. Citibank
10. HSBC

The Hall of Fame

1. Amazon
2. Trader Joe's
3. Netflix
4. Apple
5. FedEx
6. Publix
7. Southwest
8. UPS
9. Nordstrom
10. Marriott

A couple of observations.

• The "Hall of Shame" list is obviously dominated by large financial and home entertainment (cable/dish) companies. Do we have higher expectations of the companies with whom we depend on our daily financial and entertainment services?
• I personally have been a customer of seven of the companies on the "worst" list. I am currently a customer of only one of the seven and have been considering dumping them because of my experiences. I find it interesting that I am a personal example of a customer who has chosen not to do business with six of these companies.
• The "Hall of Fame" list is dominated by retail, shipping and travel companies. There is not a single financial institution or home entertainment company on the list. Once again, it begs the question if our expectations are different for those companies with whom we engage on occasion versus those with whom we depend for daily services.

 How do you react or respond to the list? What are your own experiences?

All the (Business) World's a Stage

William Shakespeare via last.fm

One of the most difficult concepts to teach front line customer service representatives is that the job sometimes requires you to act. I may be having a string of bad luck, a difficult life, or a bad hair day, but my job is to serve the customer with a smile on my face and to give that customer my best (even if I don't feel like it).

Disney has made their concept of every employee being a "cast member" a legendary concept. Business, however, has had a difficult time translating the concept into the call center, the cubicle, or the local strip mall.

One of my associates is a great coach, and she regularly tells her charges that their shift in the customer service role is "the 9-to-5 show starring you!"

The reality is that all Customer Service Reps have much to learn from good actors:

1. Voice-tone. Your voice is a tool and you can control the inflection, power and pace. A great CSR, like a great actor, knows how to control their voice to communicate effectively in a wide variety of circumstances.
2. Focus. One of the disciplines of stage actors is the ability to maintain focus on their role despite a myriad of things that may happen beyond "the fourth wall." Audience laughter, heckling, crying babies and cell phones threaten to distract them at all times, but they focus on the task at hand. CSRs can equally be distracted by any number of things, but great CSRs focus on their customers and resolving the issue at hand.
3. Discipline. Great acting takes discipline to memorize lines and blocking. Even the art of improvisation (though it seems like a contradiction) is a well-honed discipline which requires effort and practice. The same can be said of great customer service. Learning procedures, processes and how to improvise in difficult conversations requires time, attention, training and practice.

A few businesses have discovered that CSRs have much they can learn from actors. After all, "All the world's a stage (even the business world), and we are all merely actors in it."

You Get What You Expect

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I have worked with a wide range of companies through the years. Large and small, good and not so good, I've tried to capture some simple principles that seem to hold true across all of them. One of those principles is that you get what you expect out of your front-line service providers.

I've witnessed companies who appear to expect that their people are unprofessional slackers who must be constantly monitored so that they can be caught when they make some gross mistake with a customer. Their expectations are low. Their hiring practices, pay scale and organizational structure all reflect the low expectations. The result is, as you might expect, service that is average at best.

Then I've watched companies who expect the best of their people. A high standard is set in professional behavior and service delivery. They set higher standards in their hiring practice, they pay well, they set goals, they educate and equip and they reward excellence while refusing to tolerate behaviors which fall short of the standard. The result is, as you might expect, service that exceeds.

What does you company expect? What do you expect? Are you serving to win, or serving not to lose?

Obfuscating Customer Service Claims

Spin.

It's what we expect in the political world. Statistics are thrown around with little or no heed to the context or the source. As a friend of mine once told me, "83 percent of all statistics are made up on the spot." [cue rim shot]

But, of late I've been noticing how companies spin their claims of superior customer service. I've long held that many companies measure quality by making up a number on a report. I've had the opportunity to analyze really poor customer experience in the contact centers of companies who hype their customer satisfaction awards in the media. Statistical claims of superior service can be equally deceiving.

Take Sears product pick-up, for example. I've recently found myself going back to Sears to make some major purchases. They are doing a lot of things right, and I've been impressed with their employees both in the store and on the phone. I can tell that Sears is making an effort at delivering a great customer experience. Perhaps that's what my experience this week stand out.

I found myself at the Sears store on Merle Hay Road this past Tuesday. I'd picked up a partial order of patio furniture because it all wouldn't fit in my vehicle the previous day. "No problem," I'd been told, "we'll put your name on it and you can pick up the rest tomorrow. Just show us the receipt." So, I arrived and scanned my receipt in the kiosk. Nothing. The order had clearly been coded as having been picked-up in full the previous day. So, I entered my name into the kiosk to speak to an associate. In the twinkling of an eye my case showed "completed" on the kiosk status screen. Maybe a glitch. I entered it again. Immediately two other customers came in and scanned their receipts. Their cases appeared below mine on the screen. There were now three open cases for pick-up.

A couple of minutes later, an associate came out and called my name. I gave him my receipt and explained the situation with the partial pick up from the previous day. While he was out in the lobby, he also took the receipts of the two other waiting customers and disappeared into the back.

Suddenly, I looked at the kiosk status screen and noticed that all three of our open cases showed "completed," yet we all stood there waiting for our merchandise. The associate came out with the second customer's order and loaded it. He went back without a word as to why the customer who came in after me just received his merchandise before me. A few minutes later the associate came out with the third customer's order and loaded it. I'd now been standing there for somewhere around 10-15 minutes watching two customers who arrived after me get their merchandise while I was completely ignored. On his way back in, the associate finally stopped me and asked, "So, what was it you were picking up?"

It took another five minutes or so of waiting. All in all, I got my merchandise pick-up completed in somewhere around 20 to 25 minutes. While I was waiting by myself in those final minutes, I noticed the sign on the wall showing that 100 percent of customers had their merchandise pick-up "completed" in less than 5 minutes the previous week. Uh, right. I looked at the kiosk screen that showed my case had been "completed" in just over 3 minutes, but that was over 15 minutes before and I was still standing there. Obviously, Sears defines "completed" as an associate taking your receipt from you and walking into the back room.

I would argue that there is a gap between Sears' service claim and the reality of the customer's experience. But, hey, the statistic sure looks good on the wall (and on the report to corporate).

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Don't Make the Customer Work

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Last week, I was analyzing phone calls and I heard a very interesting exchange. A veteran Customer Service Representative (CSR) received a call from an existing customer looking for some technical information on a part they ordered from my client. Here is a paraphrased excerpt:

CSR: The information is in our catalog. Download it from our Web site.

Customer: I tried getting it off your Web site.

CSR: It's not on the website. Sorry. You have to download the catalog. It's in there.

Customer: Can you just get it for me and send me the information?

CSR: I'm not in a position to do it right now. Sorry.

Customer: Could you put me in your voicemail? I'll leave you my contact information and you can send it later.

CSR: (sighs impatiently) What's your number? I'll have someone call you.

Ouch.

Customers, in general, want two things: (1) They want their issue resolved and (2) they want us to care. If we don't resolve their issue or answer their question, the customer will penalize us in their dissatisfaction. In the conversation above, the customer sensed that the CSR didn't want to help her. She had already tried self-serving and it wasn't working for her. She was frustrated. That's why she called. The CSR insisting that the customer get the information only escalated the customer's frustration and rendered the CSR's insincere apologies profane.

It is common to find companies who ask their customers to do the work and serve themselves. It presents and opportunity for those willing to differentiate themselves by serving customers well.

When Exceptions are the Rule

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When it comes to customer service, you have to decide where customer service delivery lies in your overall branding and business strategy. Here are three examples:

• Exceptional Service is an accident. This applies to the company who has no idea what their customers expect (they haven't asked), no idea what level of service they are providing (they haven't listened), and no real strategy for what customer service means to their brand, their customer or their loyalty. Our group recently finished a pilot project for a company who has branded themselves as the provider of quality products, but had not given much thought to their customers' experience calling the company. Results of a small customer satisfaction survey and corresponding Service Quality Assessment revealed that their customers were not happy with the level of service they received, and were more than willing to express that the service experience did not reflect the company's brand. When customers were getting good service it was because they were fortunate enough to get a good Customer Service Representative (CSR) on the phone.
• Exceptional Service is an exception. This reflects a company who is committed to providing a minimal level of customer service. The masses can expect mediocrity that will typically not detract from, but certainly won't enhance, the average customer experience. If a customer has a problem and screams loud enough, the company will make an exception. Take a moment to read about and consider the experience of local blogger and PR Princess Claire Celsi with Dell Computers. After a long journey up the customer service escalation escalator, she sums up her observations to Dell's final response:

...there is no apology for the time I've wasted trying to get this situation fixed. And for good measure, they've let me know that making something right and trying to make a customer happy is not something they normally offer. [emphasis added]

• Exceptional Service is the rule. There are certain companies who have opted to take the customer service high road, believing that consistently providing an exceptional customer service experience will differentiate them from their competitors. This makes me think of another client who, over the years, has invested in making sure their inside sales team and regional account managers are providing a consistent, exceptional service experience unmatched by any other company in their marketplace. They didn't start as a great service provider. They took the time to learn what their customers expected, measure what they were actually delivering, and set high expectations for their team. Their steady improvement and high standards have paid off. As a result they have been able outpace the competition, outperform sales projections, and maintain enviable margins throughout the recession while their competitors are going out of business.

My experience is that most company executives will speak about customer service being important to the company and to the brand because it is politically expedient to do so. Let's face it, few executives would have the guts to broadcast that customer service is really not high on their priority list. The proof of a company's commitment to customer service is in the hundreds, thousands, and millions of individual customer experiences that take place each day.

How Do Businesses Weather Tough Times?

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We're all trying to navigate our way through turbulent economic waters. Why do some businesses resiliently sail through with relatively little damage while others find themselves sinking? That's the question Ranjay Gulati sought to answer in the book Reorganize for Resilience: Putting Customer's at the Center of Your Business.

Harvard Business Review recently inteviewed Gulati, whose research found that resilient companies have an "outside-in perspective," giving primary consideration to the customer in every part of their business.

Gulati was surprised how exceptional outside-in companies are:

"When I began this research, I naively assumed that all firms must indeed have an outside-in orientation whereby they put their customers first in all their decisions and actions. After all, that is what business is about. Much to my surprise, I found that this was the exception rather than the rule for most businesses."  

While the "Voice of the Customer" is a buzz phrase tossed about by many companies in today's marketplace, many businesses are struggling to effectively change their inside-out menality. Gulati highlights five "levers" needed:

• Coordination—Alignment of activities, processes, and information across units within an organization
• Cooperation—Alignment of goals, attitudes, and behaviors across units within an organization
• Clout—Assignment of power and decision rights to customer-facing individuals as well as those responsible for integration of activities across units within the organization
• Capabilities—Development of customer-facing generalists along with product specialists
• Connections—Expand the source of inputs and also complementary offerings beyond internal production units to external strategic partners

Gulati's message is a great reminder for all of us. Giving lip-service to being customer-centered is not the same as organizing our business (administratively, organizationally, operationally) around the customer's expectations.

Do You Serve ALL of Your Customers?

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I've been working on an interesting project lately. This particular client has two distinctly different types of customers. The service delivery system has been built to serve one type of customer and that segment of their customer base is relatively satisfied. The other customer segment isn't so happy.

We often speak of customers in generic, generalized terms. We tend to think of "the customer" as if there is one profile that fits every person who walks through our door or calls us on the phone. The reality is that most companies have a plethora of customer types. Your customer base could be segmented into very different and distinct groups. Different customer segments can have vastly different expectations. While you can't please call the people all the time, it's important to know who your key customers are and what drives their expectations.

Sometimes, you discover untapped potential at your own doorstep. Callaway golf looked at their customer base and discovered that women make up only 20 percent of the North America market. They also discovered that their products and service was heavily focused on the male customer. They are working on a line of products "by women, for women" to address what they believe is a customer segment they have largely ignored.

What are the major customer types coming through your door? Which are you catering to? Which are you ignoring?