How you define customer service?

“There is only one boss, and whether one shines shoes for a living or heads up the biggest corporation in the world, the boss remains the same. It is the customer!”-Sam M. Walton, CEO Wal-Mart 

Behind the success of any business in the world is the seriousness of its leaders towards their customers. They know how important a customer is to their operations and how adversely it can impact their setup if not treated properly. Not all companies which start, make it large as Wal-Mart or Apple. It all depends upon the way you see your customers. Who they are to you and are you ready to go an extra mile to provide them one good experience. 

How you define customer service shapes your relationship with the customers. Mere exchange of products for monies is not customer service. Doing something over it that gives them satisfaction is all that they need. As a happy and satisfied customer will bring more business than any well designed marketing strategy.


It’s a customer who pays everyone’s salary, decides a company’s fate or can fire anyone just by spending his money somewhere else. Customers need satisfaction in return to the money they have paid. Someone to listen to them, hold their hand and take them through the process. A company must understand what is motivating their customers to buy their product and focus on their needs, research on their habits and expectations. 

Let’s study few basic needs of every customer:

1)      Politeness : Being the most basic it needs utmost care. The representatives of any company need to be very polite while addressing their customers. People from hospitality and aviation industry would understand this better.  
2)      Acknowledgement : Customers should feel their needs are being acknowledged. Their voice is being heard and attention is being given to what they asked for.
3)      Apology : Understanding human nature, An apology if served right can transform an angry customer into a sweet angel and do the service recovery in just few seconds. 
4)      Empathy : A proper response is much needed after hearing to the customer. A customer must feel that you appreciate the circumstances and would have felt the same if you were at their place.
5)      Sympathy: Though close to empathy yet different. Telling a customer how sorry you are for their loss or feeling glad on their achievements.   
  
6)      Information : A customer will always love to know about the products and services you offer, if you’re able to serve them all this information without wasting much of their time.

Here’s a small video that shows a customer service representative attending to all the needs of the customer and turning him to be a happy customer.

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The Theory of Unexpected

What actually does the term “business” mean? 
An organization or economic system where goods and services are exchanged for one another or for money. This is one of the most retrospective definitions of the term business. However what we see today is the much more advanced world. Business is not just selling goods and yielding profits. It has become more dynamic.

Looking back at the old days. The options were less. A single company had the monopoly in the market and we were forced to buy that product no matter how pathetic it was. Now the time has changed. We have 263 registered television and 150 telephone or mobile phone manufacturers in the world. Out of which you hardly remember 5 or 10. How many of you reading this would not want an Iphone or maybe A Sony or Samsung LED mounted on your wall.

They all provide the same facility with a little difference but still only few manage to be on our wishlist. That one thing that plays an important role in their success is the impeccable customer service that they provide to their customers. They play the game of unexpected.

Imagine you being a customer ordered a phone on Christmas or Diwali. You open the box and see a handwritten note wishing you the occasion. Isn’t it something you never expected? That one note will at least give you a smile while you open the box and look for the product and next time you’d prefer shopping there.

Delivering what you were supposed to isn’t great business. It may be good but do you think good is just sufficient? You gave them what they paid for and the story ends there. The chances of that person doing business with you again are uncertain unless you’re the only provider in the market or the product you deliver is brilliant enough to overrule the other facts.

One of the best customer service stories are below:

“Sainsbury’s, a grocery store in the United Kingdom, received a letter from a three-year-old girl named Lily. “Why is tiger bread called tiger bread?” she asked, referring to one of their bakery items. “It should be called giraffe bread.” As the pattern on the bread does resemble a giraffe more than a tiger. To everyone’s surprise, Chris King, a customer service manager at the chain, responded. “I think renaming tiger bread giraffe bread is a brilliant idea – it looks much more like the blotches on a giraffe than the stripes on a tiger, doesn’t it? It is called tiger bread because the first baker who made it a long time ago thought it looked stripy like a tiger. Maybe they were a bit silly.” He enclosed a gift card, and the bread was renamed.

Can you now imagine the level of satisfaction in her or her parent’s mind after seeing the response and the feeling of being special that she would have got.


And why it happened? Because that was way too Unexpected.  

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The Melting Domestic Customer Service Industry.

Today India is the most favored market for Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) companies in the world and caters to 60% of the need. The BPO/KPO industry employs a workforce of 1.98 million directly and 7.5 million indirectly. The figures are dynamic and constantly growing. Our talented low cost labor and need to grow has made it easier for the bigger firms to establish their contact centers here.



      The reason of such growth is the fine quality of customer services provided by our people to their customers resulting in enhanced business and hence revenue. Our capability to speak fluent English and master skills in customer handling has captured the interest of many countries thus making it a hotspot. Many of us reading this article would be working in the BPO sector and will understand the importance of standards and protocols reinforced in our respective lines of business.


    Although famous as per the definition BPO is outsourcing of non-core activities to a third party. But are we sure if it's really non-core?Being on the front line and being the first point of contact of the customer , a customer service representative plays an imminent role in creating the company's true picture.


Companies based in countries like United States, United Kingdom, Australia and New Zealand force much on customer eccentricity and maintain optimum levels of standards and practices to ensure customer satisfaction. They treat customers like a King, may not literally but ethically.


In International contact centers based in India, From opening of a call, to proper acknowledgement, resolution providing till the proper closing, each and every step is under proper surveillance. The executives are taken through a proper training program and their skills are furbished before they are unleashed to handle the customers.

So we all know how wonderful we make a customer's experience which is reflected by the CSAT scores and the NPS surveys that they fill for us.

But do we remember any such jaw dropping or memorable experience where we have called a domestic company's contact center and proper hold procedure, language comprehension and systematic resolution sharing was followed in a proper and professional manner?


I guess for many of us the answer will be NO!

This is not because the manpower is lacking or they don't have it in them. This is because the companies don't give much importance to proper call structures and customer satisfaction levels. But we still are forced to use such brands because we don't have much alternatives.  Taking an example of United Kingdom where the electricity and gas is supplied by six big providers. A person is free to choose among them and can switch if not happy with the services. We still await that era of Customer choice.

And you know who provides this customer service facility to them? We INDIANS!


But Why can't we ensure same level of customer satisfaction in our domestic market in spite of being the biggest player of the industry. I understand the country is developing and new startups are happening. Indian companies are making big on the board but they still need to add the important ingredient of efficient Customer service leading to more customer satisfaction and more business growth.

  

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