One of the most fundamental principles of doing business is having a set of brand values that define the company and resonate with the targeted buyers.
These unique values should influence the quality of experience delivered, and customers should have aligned expectations. This strategic approach to customer experience (CX) management is well documented, but within customer service, there is an inherent problem.
The Invariable Expectation of Customer Service
Despite efforts to set and meet customer expectations and deliver a quality of experience in line with the brand values, customer service expectations are always judged the same.
Consumers do not alter their customer service quality expectations as much as they might in other aspects of the brand experience, like in the products’ features and quality.
They expect the same high-quality customer service experience regardless of whether they are booking their Porsche in for a service, returning a product from a small boutique online retailer, or posing a question about an annual home insurance policy.
The Resulting Service Quandary
The age-old challenge of customers being underwhelmed with the quality of service they receive is well documented and doesn’t appear to be getting much better.
High-end brands have no excuses, and low-end brands cannot hide behind the fact that they offer cheaper products, as that doesn’t cut it when it comes to customer service.
This challenge also often causes internal frustration:
- Service leaders of high-end brands feel obliged to deliver on the brand promise but struggle to prioritize and build the business case for new and innovative capabilities.
- Meanwhile their counterparts with low-end brands, striving to deliver a great experience on shoestring budgets, are frustrated by the constant influx of customers with product issues.
Salvation is Not More Technology
There are a few simple guidelines that if adhered to, can help ease the impossible challenge of delivering an acceptable experience with a constrained budget.
Four key aspects stand out:
1. Get the Basics Right
Everyone loves new shiny innovative capabilities, but their value will be diluted if the organization isn’t doing a good job of the basics.
For example, when looking at automotive design, if a car had built-in Wi-Fi that would be cool, but if the brakes don’t work the Wi-Fi is not going to help elevate the experience.
Good brakes are a fundamental basic requirement of any car, so these need to be up to scratch before layering on the innovation, despite the fact that no one is ever going to rave about the car’s brakes to their friends.
In the contact center, going back and examining the fundamental basic enablers of service delivery - customer connection, process orchestration, knowledge, and resource availability - is something worth pausing to assess.
If you don’t have the right number of agents to pick up the phones - or they haven’t been trained to answer customer’s questions (i.e., the basics in place) - having a nifty artificial intelligence (AI)-driven concierge service or call summarization will do little to improve the CX.
Once the basics are tracking well, adding more innovative capabilities can further elevate the experience (i.e., at this point, having in-car Wi-Fi will actually add to the experience perception).
2. Manage Expectations
As previously cited, expectation setting is a fundamental aspect of managing the CX, but within customer service, aligning these overarching expectations to brand values is not enough.
However, this does not mean the topic can be neglected, and much can be done to better manage customer expectations within customer service.
As consumers, our expectations are being set all the time. Like “how many minutes before the next train arrives, the allocated ticket number in our local deli, or how long the overhead freeway/motorway/autobahn sign says the delay ahead is?”
If we see a 20-minute “delay ahead” sign, and then the delay is 20 minutes, upon reaching our destination, the perception of the experience is much better than if there was no notification or incorrect information.
Within customer service, simple things like sharing an estimated wait time or offering a callback, e.g., “you have an estimated wait time of 15 minutes to speak with an agent, would you like us to call you back later today?” can work wonders.
However, failing to call that customer back and therefore not meeting the reset expectation is even worse.
And for the customer who chooses to wait 15 minutes and is then dealt with in 15 minutes, they are typically far happier than one who did not know the wait would be 15 minutes and spoke with someone after the same wait time.
Consumers do not alter their customer service quality expectations as much as they might in other aspects of the brand experience...
With the shift towards asynchronous interactions, it is even easier for customers to provide the necessary information about their issues and then wait for appropriate answers.
The brand should be able to update the customer on what is happening to resolve their request and when they are likely to get a response back through their chosen channel: again, setting an important expectation.
The expectation does not need to be the best in the world, and in economically challenging times, the organization may have no choice. But setting a slightly lower expectation and meeting it is better than setting no expectation at all.
3. Focus on Employee Engagement
I fundamentally believe that the human-to-human experience has a far greater opportunity to influence the CX than a digital one. An incompetent chatbot is one thing, but a rude and unhelpful agent is what would drive most people to vent on their social channel of choice.
Having employees who want to come to work, are engaged, and ideally have also been given the right tools and access to the right information to do their job is a massive driver of customer experience.
An agent in a “good mood” rubs off on the customer. Employee experience and customer experience are connected. The intrinsic link between CSAT and ESAT (employee satisfaction) has been proven many times.
In budget-constrained times, spending a bit more time looking internally at employee well-being will be an invaluable use of time. Even simple things like increasing the flexibility around shifts can have a significant impact.
The other upside is discretional effort: only an engaged agent will provide this. Only an engaged agent will “go the extra mile” for the company and its customers. This usually costs nothing but can have an incredible impact on the CX.
4. Listen to the Voice of the Employee
Feedback is not a new topic, but few service organizations do a good job of it.
- Less than 1% of contact centers, from my experience, have a VOC (voice of customer) program that combines direct (e.g., surveys), indirect (e.g., audio transcriptions), and inferred (e.g., wait time) feedback data.
- Even fewer contact centers have a VOE (voice of employee) program that also considers the above three dimensions.
Both VOE and VOC are essential to gather the evidence needed to amplify customer and employee frustrations with the service experience. There is no one better placed to understand where the issues are and what can be done to improve the operational environment and CX than the employee.
Through collecting ad hoc feedback, regular employee surveying, analyzing employee transcripts (emotion, fatigue, frustration with processes and systems), and tracking employee actions (system usage, adherence), contact centers can identify much low-hanging fruit to process. Many of which will not require significant investment.
Conclusion
In a world where customer expectations are sky-high, delivering a consistent, high-quality service experience is paramount.
Regardless of the brand, customers expect exceptional service every time. By focusing on the basics, setting clear expectations, engaging employees, and leveraging their feedback, organizations can transcend their limitations.
Forget the shiny new toy for now. It’s the human element that holds the real magic.