CLIENT SERVICE A COMMITMENT FOR ALL EMPLOYEES

by Luba Charlton, Managing Director, Charlton Management Consulting

December 2006

Any organisation serious about creating a customer service culture must start with a strategic plan, that is, a detailed plan that acknowledges where its customer service levels currently lie and a statement about where its customer service levels should be and how it is planning to get there.

From the outset this raises some interesting questions that have major implications for the running of a business.

In deciding what level of customer service a company should offer, a realistic assessment of the company’s presentation to the market should be made. Take a look at the marketing of the business and its product or service, as well as its distribution, price, promotion and sales material, for example, and make an objective assessment of what is appropriate level of service, especially in light of what competitors are offering.

Whether an organisation has a high degree of customer contact or an indirect level of customer contact, all organisations must be highly customer-focused. It may seem like a paradox to say that a business can be highly customer focused yet not have direct engagement with its customers, but the key is for an organisation to understand its customers in great detail. Online businesses, for example, may run a service that involves customers using the programs found on the company’s website without actually contacting the business. The core of the customer-service culture in this instance is identifying exactly how the program can best be used by the customer and what they’re willing to pay for.

Any business, therefore, must commit to writing down what level and type of services customers will receive, then rate it on a scale of 1 to 10. If this results in further market research to better understand the value of what a company is offering to the client, as committing a service to paper often does, then it is in the long term interests of the business to do so.

For organisations that truly believe in customer service, this philosophy must make an indelible mark on the organisation by being written as a policy and understood throughout the organisation. It must state clearly the company’s belief and overall goals in its approach to customer service. The policy is in effect a manifestation of how the organisation collectively treats customers, and ensures that this ethos is recognised at all levels of the organisation, from its oldest employee to its latest recruit. It becomes a definition point in judging a potential recruit’s orientation in this regard. Management use the policy to assist in setting goals for customer service.

With the policy clearly defined, this enables to be put in place a set of behaviours and actions that ensure the policy becomes a reality. It cannot be assumed that having read the policy, employees will understand how that translates into a real exchange between the company and its stakeholders. Identifying who are the customers is an important part of this process. A customer service oriented company, like any organisation, has a front line of people who deal with the customers who consume the good or service provided. Truly customer serviced oriented organisations ensure that those who don’t serve the customer directly still keep the customer as their central focus by serving those people in the organisation that are on the frontline. Successive layers within the organisation that move from highly functional, to more generalist managerial roles, must all understand their role in this process, right to the CEO who in this model of thinking sits under the organisation as ultimately serving the customer.

An organisation can only reach its full potential as a customer-service oriented business if it hires people who have an inherent instinct and inclination to know how to relate and empathise with others, and how to communicate with customers in such a way that their needs are satisified, and that ideally their expectations are exceeded. Proper recruiting procedures will start with a clear understanding of the job role and the qualities that are most needed to be successful in the role. A recruiting firm therefore must itself be highly customer-centred in being willing to invest the time and effort to know exactly the person required, and be able to contribute their own thoughts and recommendations to the personality and skills needed to succeed in the job. Once the organisation decides on its employee, the induction process should include a thorough briefing on the policy and procedure for customer service in the organisation.

Of course, leadership in customer service must come from the top. Management must be centred on customer service, and know how to communicate this to the rest of the organisation. Diageo is a company that invests considerable time and effort in communicating internally about the efforts staff are making across the organisation to achieve targets in terms of delivering product on time and with care. The communication is not based on theory, but talks about real achievements which are quantified in some way. It underlines the importance of customer service from management to staff, provides appropriate acknowledgement and inspiration for staff members, and also creates a voice across the organisation that demonstrates what good customer service looks and feel like, which in turn allows staff to visualise what good customer service looks like within their own division.

If management are successful in instigating a culture of customer service, some interesting things happen in terms of staff. Those that don’t fit in with the customer service focus will start self-selecting out of the working environment where the staff member may not, for example, feel much job satisfaction in working to solve a client problem. Their motivations are different, and it is incumbent on them to seek out a workplace that does support what they are looking for. Fear and the unknown, of course, keep many workers in their job for longer than they should be there, and in this case for a customer-service oriented business the challenge is to ensure its reputation for customer service remains intact while such individuals are identified and transitioned to a more appropriate role or position.

One of the most useful tools in creating a customer service culture is to create KPIs that are linked to their commitment to customer service. This is a great motivator in orienting and prioritising the thinking of a staff member who is trying to understand what is important to the organisation and defining what it means for them to do the job successfully. KPIs are not the stuff of annual reviews but regular on the job assessments in which management observe the actions of a staff member and can praise actions that do define an organisation as customer-oriented, or in the same vein provide encouragement while examining a decision made not in keeping with the ethos of the organisation and working with that staff member to understand how their thinking and approach could be different.

How important is it to have a customer service plan in place? It’s important enough to say that without that right level of focus on the customer, the business is highly vulnerable to competitors, particularly in the services area. If a product is truly a market leading item, the business that produces that item has a strong barrier to entry to begin with. Superior customer service only heightens this barrier to entry.

In the service sector however, poor customer service results in low customer loyalty. The barrier of entry is so low in these cases, that upstart organisations with some business knowledge, marketing nous, and concern for the well-being of the customer can run roughshod over an established business in a short space of time. Poor customer service is one of the key indicators entrepreneurs use when looking for opportunities to build new markets, because they know customers are waiting for a better offer. With the real or imagined threat of such competition moving into my client’s market, it is one of the best ways I know to focus the business mind.

Not being able to manage people issues in particular can be demoralising. There is far more at stake for a staff member to finish a phone call with an upset customer left at an impasse, than it is to make a clerical error or temporarily misplace an important document, for example. Being the recipient of negative human emotion requires great skill to manage. For ill-equipped staff members, internalising these experiences can cause enormous stress.

The upside therefore when considering the strategic implications of customer service are appealing because there are both short and long term gains to be realised. In the short term, upskilling staff in their customer service skills has a tremendous impact internally on the morale of an organisation. Staff who have learnt to manage customer issues through training and development not only feel more supported and acknowledged in their role, but feel far more competent and empowered to deliver outstanding customer service. The biggest financial benefit to the organisation is lower staff turnover, a classic blackhole in a company’s budget.

In the medium to long term, a sustained focus on customer service enhances the reputation of the product or service and the business that supports it, resulting in improved word of mouth and increasing numbers of referrals. Having boosted morale in the short term, the enduring benefit of quality customer service amongst staff is the growing confidence that is gathered in being competent and continuing to deal effectively with any challenges that arise.

Implicit in these statements is that good customer service is something that can be learnt. Well executed training programs, and they certainly need to be thought through beforehand, support the policy and procedure of the business, helping staff interpret and understand these guidelines in order for the business be more competitive in the marketplace. As part of this training, it needs to be explained to staff why good customer service is important. State what the expected outcomes should be and help them visualise what the benefit will be to the organisation.

This message and commitment must be driven from the top of the organisation through regular communications that reinforce the customer-service culture. Examples of good customer service at every level of the organisation provides the modelling by which everyone else in the organisation can relate to and incorporate into their own behaviour. Reinforcing great customer service extends to reward mechanisms and acknowledgements that have value and status within the culture of the organisation.