A Good Week For Customer Service October 8, 2009
Posted by Bruce Temkin in Call center customer experience, Customer experience, customer service.trackback
Customer service is underapreciated in many companies. So it’s great that we are celebrating Customer Service Week. In honor of the occasion, I’ve collected some of my thoughts (and posts) about customer service:
- Customer Service Attracts Loyal Customers highlights an important fact that consumers that are looking for good customer service are much more loyal than those that are looking for low prices.
- Customer Service Trumps Price shows how consumers prefer good customer service more frequently than low prices across 12 different industries.
- Comparing Price Seekers And Service Seekers shows that most consumers want both low prices and good service, but those that want only good service far outnumber those that want only low prices.
- Don’t Confuse Customer Service With Customer Experience discusses how customer service represents some of the key moments of truth when looking at an overall customer experience strategy.
- Customer Service Champs From BusinessWeek highlighted the list of companies with great customer service like Amazon.com and USAA.
- AOL, Comcast Headline Customer Service Hall of Shame gives a list of companies that aren’t delivering great customer service.
- Discussing Zappos’ Culture With Tony Hsieh gives insights into how you create a culture needed to deliver great customer service.
- Dial 1-800 For Customer Service shows that most consumers want ot get customer service over the phone and that 40 year-olds are the most interested in self-service phone applications.
- With Customer Service, CARES Beats ACES introduces the “CARES“ framework for evaluating customer service interactions:
- Communication (clearly communicate the process and set expectations)
- Accountability (take responsibility for fixing the problem or getting an answer)
- Responsiveness (don’t make the customer wait for your communication or a solution)
- Empathy (acknowledge the impact that the situation has on the customer)
- Solution (at the end of the day, make sure to solve the issue or answer the question)
The bottom line: Customer service deserves more than a week of focus.
Bruce, thank you for highlighting Customer Service Week (I was unaware of this). I enjoy reading your blog and this post really got me thinking about the difference between “customer service” and “customer experience”. I wrote a couple of posts today on my blog addressing how a customer service strategy can really differentiate a local retailer from a national retailer.
Thank you Bruce for highlighting how important the customer experience, and customer service, is for our businesses.
Like Darren, I’d never heard of Customer Service Week. However, this is a great article. Very thorough, especially clear communications, which I feel are most important with customer service. Great post.