Why customer service should take pride of place in your strategy

In a world where everything is on sale in some way, there is one thing which you can guarantee will bring customers back: Good customer service. No, not good, amazing – Amazing customer service.

In some companies’ yearly targets the most you’ll see is: “Improve customer service”. Most will probably boil down to those three words, given the amount of detail some companies put in. Let’s get this straight as well, I’m not just talking about major companies, I’m talking about small independent shops or e- businesses. Some may not even have a map for their customer service.

We all know the success of any e- business is down to the ease of the customer experience. You see, you click, you buy. But what’s beyond that? In days gone by you could get away with having people that just keep your company out of court when things go wrong, but not anymore. There are hundreds of user review websites out there now and they are gathering ever more of a following as people are far more scrutinous of online buying than they ever were.

I work up in The City of London and wanted to join a gym. First thing I did? Google Maps. I found my workplace and typed in “gym”. Clicked on a few gyms in the local area to bring up the basic info and only clicked on the websites of the few which had more than 4 stars. Why? Because each of those little stars is worth far more to me as a potential customer than the £/$thousands spent on a website. Those stars are given by real people with real opinions, not a PR/Marketing team.

You can’t buy those stars, you can only earn them. How do you earn them? By giving those customers who’ve handed over their money the best experience possible.

No blog can tell you what your company needs to do to improve your service levels, or what targets to set, but let me tell you what I think you should consider:

1. Goal setting. It’s of paramount importance, as with any business planning, to set a target to be reached. If you don’t, you will never know when you’ve achieved what you set out to do. However, customer service is not quantifiable, so make it quantifiable. How? Read on.
2. Go to your customer. Don’t wait for customers to come to you. You’ll only ever get complaints unless someone’s in a particularly good or charitable mood. Those little things which the customer feels aren’t serious enough to raise will go unheard and your reputation will begin to whither. That doesn’t mean hound them day and night, but showing your customers that you care about how they felt about their dealings with you goes a very long way. Don’t forget it needs to be simple, quick and unobtrusive otherwise people wont bother. Your customers don’t want to do your work for you, so there needs to be incentive. If it’s fast then it doesn’t cost them time. Something as simple as a 1-10 scale with an option of whether they want a call back to discuss any problems is great.
3. Don’t settle for anything less than perfect. There’s no use having a scale or a measure of customer service if you’re not aiming to surpass it. You’re also in a bad place if your goal is to simply not dip below a number. Remember you’re not setting a minimum requirement.
4. Be proactive, not complacent. The idea of maintaining good customer service is what makes companies complacent. Always, always, always proactively aim to achieve better customer service.
5. Talk to your staff. Your staff and colleagues are your resource. Ask them what problems they encounter with customers, what customers are regularly asking for. Use this feedback to help plan your strategy.
6. Incentivise your staff. Every employer wants staff who give 100% but more often than not this isn’t the case. The worst customer service I’ve received seems to stem from staff who couldn’t care less. Customer service is about providing a positive experience. You will not achieve this by threatening your staff with punitive measures if their service target dips below your accepted level. They will resent you and resent the act of providing good customer service. Give them incentives. Something as simple as “Employee of the month” can be very effective if there’s a clear structure as to how each employee is rewarded. Work out what incentivises your staff and play to it. Young staff, older staff, married staff, family staff, single staff… If incentives fail across the board, question your incentives. If incentives fail with individuals, think hard about whether they fit their role or your company. Happy, respectful staff make customers happy.
7. Transparency. Provide your whole company and your customers (if you’re confident!) with a clear message which shows how highly you regard their custom and your customer service. A service graph on your website showing your “rating” with customers is a great way to show this and is a brilliant sales tool.
8. Keep up to date with your companies ratings on popular ratings websites. Set aside time to check weekly or every 2 weeks the reviews your customers are giving you. Encourage them to review you on the websites.
9. Staff meetings. Whether you’re one of a 2 person team or the head of a 3,000 strong company, your staff or departments should have some sort of team meeting and team building at least once a month, ideally weekly. Again, make them look forward to it – maybe do it over company paid breakfast? Give your staff a chance to share their experiences of customers and their issues, how they handled and resolved it. Use this time to evaluate your staff and your road map. Is it working? Are they getting it? Do the customers know about your strategy? Is it too much too soon? How can your team improve? How can the road map improve?
10. Language. How your staff communicate with your customers is important. Be aware of the image that is portrayed by different terminology. Having staff referring to customers in ways like "Mate" "Buddy" "Love" immediately tells them that they don't respect them, that they are equals. I think "I'm not your mate, you're here to help me." Language like "Sir" "Madam" and "Thank you" "You're welcome" "Please" go so far. You don't see those words round much nowadays so their value is high and they are free to use - so make sure your staff make good use of them. Age or social profiling can back fire. It's best to play safe with the Sir's etc. Be aware that not every 18-30 year old wants to be referred to as "mate".

Create a strategy. Commit to surpassing what is expected of your customer service. Clearly show yourself and your staff how you’re going to achieve it. Be prepared to review it whenever you have to.

Thanks for reading,

Chris

How it all began

Well, not “all” but at least the chapter in my life which closely relates to the nature of this blog…

Let’s apply some context first. I’m a young guy and in what you could say is potentially my “career” job. Left University in 2009 and have found myself working for a lovely organisation.

I’ve only worked for a few companies in my life so far, 7 in total. From temporary jobs to “strap yourself in boy, you’re in it for the long haul” type jobs. Of those 7 companies I only ever felt any sort of affinity with 3. In those 3 companies I really noticed when things just weren’t running right, when staff weren’t pulling their weight, when managers were making wrong decisions, where unnecessary procedures were slowing things down and costing money, where strategy was flawed.

In these companies I was never in a position to action any real change, only propose it. Leaving such proposals at the feet of already busy management usually always ended in not much change. Being the bottom of the bottom didn’t help either. These were all facts which I was aware of at the time but only now I see as clear signs of a budding business mind, but as is the nature of the machine sometimes, they remained un-nurtured.

Entrepreneurialism not being supported or even discussed in Schools I’d say had a pretty significant impact on my direction in life. To go from the school system, a place where your every move is coordinated and out of your control to “real-life” where you’re pretty much free to do anything is a big step. All I knew was there were 2 options: University or get a job. The decisions laid at my feet as a young man were which box to fit in. Typing this in our current climate where jobs are scarce I dread to think how hopeless the current school leavers feel, although with the publicity surrounding programmes such as The Apprentice and Dragons Den, a lot of the work schools should be doing to inspire young people to create their own businesses is already being done by the idiot box.

I didn’t set out to write a biography or talk about the education system and it's failings in relation to nurturing young business minds, so I’ll skip to the moment which changed my life. It was such a simple reply to a little moan.

“Why is there not a game where you can do … ?”

“If it bothers you so much why don’t you make one?”

Comments like that can easily be left in conversation. Reading it now, it seems so obvious that I should have just made it myself. But to me, someone who was so used to the idea of money coming from a defined employer, the idea of creating something which doesn’t exist yet to fill a gap in the market was mind blowing. Previously I’d assumed that there were all these clever people walking around having an idea every minute, that this sort of thing was best left to companies with their millions of pounds and army of staff, but suddenly at that moment I realised that I had been entirely wrong and that it was moments like this which have defined the course of people’s lives and history.

I look back 3 years ago, before the big idea, at that point in my younger life and wish I could initiate that spark which started me off on this journey into business. I wish I could say to myself only 3 years ago “What you have got is what it takes to start your own business, make your own money and be your own boss. Do not think you can’t do it, that it wont happen or that it’s not the best option.”

My hope is that 3 years from now, I wont look back at my 25 year old self and think “God, how much time did you waste!” This is what kicks me up the backside every time I slow down. It works so well for me because I hate having regrets. I still cringe at things I did 10 years ago, even though they’re hardly worth remembering.

I’d recommend everyone to search themselves for something which can act as a reminder why you’re doing this and why you must see it through.

Of all the things I've experienced so far, some of which I'll talk about in other posts, I've worked out a few things which may be valuable to some of you reading this. These are all things which are important to me and have led me to this point in my life.

1. Surround yourself with positive people. I don't mean yes men, I mean people who wont just shoot down your idea because they can't be bothered to understand how it will work.
2. Set yourself targets firmly attached to dates. This is something I wish I would have done a while ago. When you're enthused by an idea it's impossible to think that you could lose that flame, but eventually when you have to start working on it, the enthusiasm can wane. Having a set list of tasks to accomplish by certain dates helps to keep you in check. The problem with starting a business, especially when you have a day job, is that there's no real consequence for not achieving your goal. This is where self discipline is a must. Anyone can say they're going to finish something in a month, but you are the only person who's going to tell you off - and I think you might go a bit softer on yourself! Favouritism in the workplace, *tut*.
3. Talk to people about the idea. Don't be afraid to talk to people you trust about what you're doing; family and friends. Maybe not the guy on the train, but the more people you talk to about it the more ideas you'll get and the more clearly your idea will formulate in your mind. Everyone will have a different priority list of what's important so the questions you get from one person may be totally different to ones from another. I'd say, looking over the course of my journey, the idea I had started off more like a splat but by talking to friends and family it became very nearly a perfect circle.
4. Get someone else on board. No one can do everything and eventually you will probably need help. If you can do everything you need to do to succeed in your business then that's brilliant, but I can't. So team up with someone who has the skills which you don't have and who you feel will share your dream for your product.

Well that's my first blog post finished. Took a lot longer than I thought it would but enjoyed the reminiscing and at least this can act as the intro to my autobiography when I'm 65 and the richest man in the world, ever.

Thanks for reading,

Chris