Tag Archives: People

Road Rage and Customer Service

Posted on 29 September 2009 by | 1 Comment

Road rage and customer service in America are quite similar.  One reason customer service stinks is that companies don’t know their customers.  How could they?  Most customer service is delivered via phone, email, or a chat window.  Most American service isn’t even “made in America”.

Over-crowding – in the 1950s a scientist conducted studies involving over-crowded rats.  (One interpretation contained here.)  A simplistic summary is that overcrowding rats caused them to become aggressive to one another.  If you run a customer service center I have a plea for you.  Stand up, walk outside your office and look around.  Does the scene resemble over-crowding?  Are your service representatives measured by average speed of answer, time to resolve a question/call?  The quality of the service can be only as good as the people you have and their efficacy is impacted by work conditions.

Anonymity – wearing their invisibility cloaks, drivers feel they can treat other drivers (who are people) poorly.  Pedestrians don’t treat each other as rudely as drivers treat each other.  When was the last time you heard of a fist-fight related to one person entering a revolving door before another?  How about someone slipping ahead on an on ramp?  Similarly face-to-face service is more civil than that provided over a phone.  People still crave relationships and responsive customer service is just that – a relationship, albeit brief.  Even if we must provide service via phone or chat window or email, we must preserve the relationship with customers.

Loss of Control – road rage is borne of a feeling of intense frustration.  And that frustration boils over into poor decisions which are at best rude and at worst deadly.  Customer service representatives who lack the tools to solve a problem provide little value to customers – who recognize the fact and grow frustrated.  Likewise, customer service representatives who have no control aren’t engaged and it shows.

The pivot point is that unless you take great care in delivering service, your customers may feel more like victims of road rage than valued stakeholders.  Customer service has gotten a bad reputation and deservedly so. I saw a television commercial extolling the virtues of “speaking with an actual person.”  Imagine that, an actual person! What a sad commentary of how impersonal our service culture has become.  To reverse this trend, treat your people with respect and trust your team, create relationships with customers, and provide tools and training to the people who are charged with earning repeat business and maintaining a respected reputation.

→ 1 Comment

Posted in How to Deliver Customer Service

Tagged , , ,

Steps to Employee Engagement

Posted on 21 September 2009 by | 3 Comments

I read a good post at HBR not too long ago whose premise was that if your employees don’t know what your company does, it’s unlikely your customers will.

Unfortunately not only do employees not know what the company does, they don’t know that what they do matters!  You can amplify your value to your customers (hence your company) as a leader/manager by developing engaged employees:

  1. Knowing what your company does – Read Anthony Tjan’s post for some good ideas.  “Your Employees Have No Clue What Your Company Does”
  2. Translating it into simple language – Google’s done a great job of this.  “Google’s mission is to organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful.”  And a laugh from the other end of the spectrum (yes this is true),  “… to scout profitable growth opportunities in relationships, both internally and externally, in emerging, mission inclusive markets, and explore new paradigms and then filter and communicate and evangelize the findings.”
  3. Explaining how employees contribute to the company’s success – This linkage is the critical piece to linking engaged employees to your company success.  In my experience this link is often ignored, especially in supporting functions (e.g. a Human Resources employee in a Legal Firm).  If the HR specialist doesn’t understand that the benefits program, 401K plan, and compensation policy contribute to the firm’s success, how much passionate engagement will an employer get?
  4. Measure performance and communicate results – Seems simple, but knowing what you do is different than knowing how you do.  How does my performance stack up against my peers’?  How does it compare to my performance last year?

Being able to articulate what the company does is a start. But turning that knowledge into passionate engagement comes from strong management!  The pivot point is that employees who know that what they do is valued and that their improved performance is noticed can increase profits and move your company towards its goals.

→ 3 Comments

Posted in Influential Factors - Helpful, Necessary for Success

Tagged , , ,

The Ideal Employee

Posted on 1 September 2009 by | 1 Comment

There is a lot of research related to finding the right employees for various jobs.  Happily, finding the right people for Customer Service positions is not complicated.  Hard?  Yes.  Complicated?  No.

The number one attribute that service employees must have (not optional) is an innate desire to serve.  They must offer themselves to their customers.  It is not enough to be able to serve (which many of us can do).  Their psychological DNA must contain an inherent need to please others.  These people are the face of your company.  They get phone calls, chat requests, and emails only when something is not clear or has gone wrong.  Whether or not they successfully solve an issue is the difference between a [repeat] customer and a defection.

Some schools of thought start with technical or subject matter prowess.  But technical people with no service skills should work [well] behind the scenes.  They’ll be happier and your customers will be happier too.

As I mentioned, this process isn’t complicated.  But it is hard to find qualified people because customer service positions have been maligned and outsourced.  Passion isn’t a commodity.  As a result, people who love to serve are 1) compensated so poorly they seek other positions and 2) early candidates for outsourcing.  Don’t be fooled – low cost service provided by the wrong employees holds no value and your customers know it.

When you do find a candidate who can blend subject matter expertise with service passion, hire them and keep them!

The pivot point is that customer service employees must truly love serving others.  That skill alone is the key on which all other service attributes (phone etiquette, time management, communication, etc.) can be built.  A man I know often says you can’t teach height [to basketball players].  You can’t teach a passion for service either.

→ 1 Comment

Posted in Necessary for Success

Tagged , , , ,