Your Customer Service Just Needs To Not Be C.R.A.P.

Do you remember the Sainsbury’s Tiger bread story where the marketing team went to town around 3-year-old Lily’s request to change the name to Giraffe bread? And that time the response from a Lego CSR went viral because of a 7-year-old with a letter from Sensei Wu?

All lovely stuff and great examples of brands going the extra mile. When I talk to people I think these stories and the expectation to deliver ‘exceptional’ customer service is a bit intimidating.

In the world of health, to be exceptional you need to exercise for 30 mins three times a week, drink 8 glasses of water and eat 5 portions of fruit or veg a day and have 2 portions of fish a week.

If you don’t do this – then at least grab an apple with your lunch, have some peas with your pork steak and run up the stairs at work.

I reckon worrying about delivering EXCELLENT CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE gets in the way of cracking on and just not being CRAP.

So what is CRAP?

C ……onsistently Inconsistent

Don’t say one thing one day and another thing another day.
Take scenarios and make sure that, irrespective of the channel, the advisor or the customer service centre, the customer is going to get the same answer.

R……epeat, Repeat, Repeat

Don’t make your customers repeat themselves. Value their time (73% of customers say that valuing their time is the most important thing a company can do to provide them with good service. *Forrester). If you have to transfer then tell them and do it warm so they aren’t needing to repeat themselves. If they contact you again, ideally have a system that ties the caller with the notes from their last transaction.

A……pathetic

Don’t make it seem like you don’t care. Whether you are in a claims centre, a holiday booking centre, a funeral care centre or you work on prize winners line (best service I’ve ever worked on!), use all the skills in the contact centre’s tool bag to make sure that interactions are addressed with soft skills like listening and empathy.

P…ainful

Through the IVR routing to the confirmation email, don’t make any of the bit the customer has to do painful. As the US Army said Keep it Simple Stupid. Net Easy is the key measurement to make sure you are on the way to getting this bit right.