Businesses today are entering a “no-mans
land” of sorts when it comes to defining what customer service means. From what has been coined as the “Firewall
Mentality” in IT (regardless of the ask, put your customer first or fail) to
empowering the IT Customer Service Desk with more than simply scripts to read
from, it is all changing because of the digital automation environment that we
are now surrounded by. The risk is you
have to change too by putting your customer first, or your survival is in
jeopardy.
At the heart of the issue is the simple
fact that we as a service provider no longer control the message. In the past, we would provide one page “cheat
sheets” or a colorful website with common instructions on how to bold in MS
Word, or how to reveal codes in WordPerfect 5.1. In today’s day and age of constant and
consistent connectivity through mechanisms such as social media, this process
has flipped. Consumers are now doing
their own research before they even walk into a box store, or call/email for
assistance. Opinions from strangers who
have left feedback on websites is now considered valuable. If you are not customer-focused, the world
hears about it at lightning speed. So
this is all great Mike, but how do I ensure I am delivering good customer
service?
Recently a company showed up in my LinkedIn
feed called Medallia. Normally I pass
off the majority of sponsored postings, but this one caught my eye. Their simple ‘About’ statement on their
website, in my opinion, leverages exactly the concept of the new customer
service experience. “Medallia was
started in Silicon Valley in 2001 on a simple premise: companies could leverage
the power of the internet to improve the experience they deliver to their
customers.” In layman’s terms, a cloud
based service that helps organizations understand how well or poorly they are
delivering customer service. And their
customer base is a who’s-who of not just IT organizations, but global
enterprises: Intuit, Wells Fargo, LaQuinta Inns & Suites, LEGO, and Zurich
just to name a few.
The claim of their products is that they
help their customers become more data centric, but also understand the data of
the overall perception the public have of them. They collect from a multitude of online
sources such as surveys and general online discussions, massage it, and deliver
the results in real-time through a variety of mechanisms to specific people
throughout the organization. These
people in turn, can take a strategic or tactical approach to the data. Other mechanisms are available within an
“action phase”, which allows the organization to get down to the root cause of
the issue, offer up ways to fix it, and essentially follow the problem through
to resolution.
Too often we hear the phrase “become
proactive rather than reactive” yet as an IT organization, we struggle on how
to accomplish this. We recognize this requirement;
that fact is not revolutionary. We
establish internal processes to assist us through the majority of the
scenarios, but lose our way when something veers off-script. It becomes disruptive to our everyday business. We need to grasp the customer service
experience we are delivering. Deviating
from the set process is transferring from the exception, to the norm. A better grasp on what customers want you to
deliver, will improve the overall experience.
It is up to us as IT professionals to figure out how.
Analyzing the data, as it happens, is the
first step I believe into improving customer service in today’s new era. Engage in conversation with your customer,
and listen. Don’t offer up opinions
during your initial discussions. Listen
to the problem first and foremost. Give
the customer a unique experience where they feel they are more than simply a
number or a trouble ticket. After all, without
them, where would we be?
I’m Mike M.
* I do not endorse, nor am I compensated by
any company or organization mentioned within this blog. This is simply an opinion blog. Any and all trademarks are the registered property
of their respective owners.
