In some organisations, the term ‘customer service’ seems to be a kind of perverse oxymoron. The good news is that the pendulum does appear to be swinging in our – the customers’ – favour, albeit slowly.
For years, companies invested in technology as the answer to efficiency, cost savings and value. And there’s nothing wrong with technology, except technology doesn’t do people, and customers are people; sometimes unreasonable, often difficult, but still people.
We’re just glad that more companies are recognising that if their staff’s customer-facing (or telephony) skills are up to par (or beyond), they’ll have a far better chance of pleasing and retaining their customers.
We rely more and more on technology in our daily lives, yet in an odd way, our expectations around customer service are higher than ever. As we can buy or book online instantly, we now want our queries or complaints dealt with instantly, too. We want phones answered within three rings, we don’t want to be put on hold (too bad Vivaldi isn’t alive – he’d make a fortune in royalties for The Four Seasons), and we most definitely don’t want to be phoned back because we doubt we ever will.
Actually, aren’t there times when you feel you’re doing other people’s jobs for them? Like making phone calls to chase people to try to get them to do what you’re paying them to do?
The sad thing is that we’re surprised when we receive good service, and some customer service is incredibly good. People who want to engage with you and make an effort to connect with you as someone they want to serve, as opposed to a problem they want to get rid of. People who are cheerful, empathetic, knowledgeable and will go the ‘extra mile’ if that’s what it takes to get a result.
Here’s a little exercise for you to try: make a list of all the places, shops, restaurants, holiday destinations, service providers and brands that you return to time and again, and next to each one give a key reason why.
We all have reasons for liking something, someone or somewhere. They don’t necessarily have to be logical or make sense to anyone else. We worked with someone years ago who, when we did this exercise, said there was one Greek restaurant he always went back to, not because the food was any better than another Greek restaurant nearby (indeed it was probably worse), but because on Friday nights he got to smash plates and dance around.
Now, you may be someone who avoids smashing plates and dancing around, which is why we say that everyone’s reasons for liking a place or returning will be different. So, see if you have any quirky, plate-smashing reasons why you go back. Is it because “everybody knows your name” or no one does? Is it because they’ll have you talking about your favourite football team within a minute of a conversation? Is it because they support your favourite charity or arts organisation?
Or, is it simply because, when you phone or show up in person, you feel really taken care of and that your business (large or small) counts?
Now make an opposite list:
As you compile this list, you may find that you become annoyed just thinking about it. You’ll revisit old frustrations and anger, even if the incidents happened years ago. You may even experience more emotions thinking about the negative list than your positive one. That’s how potent bad customer service can be – it seems to stay in our cell structure!
Have you ever complained? And by this, we mean go out of your way to make a complaint to a company, store or service provider. We ask because it usually takes a lot to get to the complaining stage. Most people have to be well and truly fed up to make the effort to ring up or write a letter. We’re talking about the kind of regular folk who are generally satisfied; don’t get too hot under the collar when things don’t go all that smoothly; want to be pleasant and for people to be pleasant in return.
You know what we mean when we say it takes a lot to make you complain. So what happened? What did you have to do and did it work? Did getting on the phone and making your dissatisfaction known have any impact? Did you receive a response to your letter or email? Were you taken care of? Were your expectations met?
Companies could learn a lot if they looked at the reasons why people complain and just how much it takes for them to do so. Fortunately, a lot more dissatisfied people are actually complaining, which is why many companies offer customer hotlines and make a big deal of saying how much their customers matter.
Quite honestly, we think a lot of that is lip service. Companies may have loyalty schemes, retention teams, lapsed member squads, but they still haven’t got fully under the skin of what customers want. They do try, but in our experience, if something is convenient for them, it often doesn’t matter if it’s inconvenient for us.
Are we being unfair? Probably. So, read on.
Up until now, we’ve concentrated on what happens to ‘us’ – the customers. Yet, what about ‘them’, the customer carers?
Since blaming them is what we think is the right thing to do when things go wrong, people who deal with the public, either face to face or on the phone, are confronted with a barrage of unhappiness, dissatisfaction, anger and frustration on an ongoing basis.
No wonder staff turnover in retail is so high. In fact, did you know that in the UK, the largest turnover of staff is in call centres? Come to think of it, how many of us would want to work in one? We’re not talking about the environment that phone advisers work in (some are terrific and have a superb atmosphere) – what we’re on about is the fact that day in and day out, hour after hour, these people have to deal with us.
Whether we’re in the legitimately dissatisfied or perennial complainer category, most of us tend to find it easier to point out faults than to praise and acknowledge when things go right. And we’re not always sensible when we do have a complaint. We make assumptions that the person in front of us or on the phone will know exactly what we’re talking about. We take all our frustrations and annoyances out on the person who’s representing the company, even if they had nothing to do with why we’re angry. Not only that, we may use this particular forum to vent a whole lot of anger that doesn’t have anything to do with the person, the company or the thing we’re complaining about. This is called ‘kicking the cat’.
If, in the face of this, the person on the receiving end of our request (we were going to write rant, but we know things don’t always come out of our mouths in rant form) is defensive, we don’t like it. It makes us even more frustrated or angry.
Here’s an exercise you can do with a friend. One of you has to think of something to complain about (something that you feel genuinely annoyed about) and the other person has to be the customer carer. The complainer must let rip about everything that is wrong, such as what the company didn’t do, how they felt let down, etc. The person on the receiving end of this can respond in whatever way they want (apart from resorting to physical violence, please. You are friends after all).
In most cases, it doesn’t take too long to feel and become defensive, even if you had the best intentions of staying calm. Even in a simple exercise like this, where nothing is at stake, our sense of helplessness and of feeling under attack are heightened really quickly. It’s a natural response to become defensive, want to strike back or hide away inside ourselves until the storm subsides.
This is what’s happening to the people we have a go at when we’re unhappy about something. These front-line people have a lot to contend with. If they haven’t been trained well, then they’re already going to be at a disadvantage, especially because their job can feel like a thankless one.
In an ideal world, ‘we’ would be calm, collected and clear when we make our complaints or problems known. ‘They’ would be friendly, understanding, informative and efficient. As far as we’re concerned, an ideal world isn’t all that hard to achieve. For the most part, people do like to be loyal; they like to have their special place, brand or company that makes them feel as if they matter. They’re proud to recommend their bank, favourite watering hole or brand of cereal they could never do without.
And for the most part, people don’t set out to be unhelpful, rude, difficult or uninformed. They have been hired in a customer service role and most of them genuinely want to help. So what goes wrong? Both ‘sides’ contribute. Customers will, however, vote with their feet if let down too often. Customer servers, too, will be tipped over the edge if they get unreasonably harassed and badgered.
But really, we should both be on the same side, because ultimately, we want the same thing: ‘we’ want good service, and ‘they’ want to do a good job for their organisation.
Read the second part of this feature right here.
© FoodBev Media Ltd 2024