Photo taken from www.ecircle.com
Customer service representatives (CSR) of small-medium enterprises (SME) are like our favorite baristas. They excel in adding a little human touch and personalizing our coffee to our liking. SMEs are bold and generous when it comes to their customer service, knowing that good customer service will result in a loyal customer base for them in the long run. SimplySoles for example, sends out handwritten thank-you notes to every customer who orders shoes. Customers can even reach the founder, Kassie Rempel directly through the toll free hotline.
Effective and friendly self-service is what SMEs are working towards. As their company expands, SMEs seek to increase the number of self-serve channels to reduce the burden on individual CSRs. A well-written FAQ page should be able to solve most customers’ problems without them having to call up a CSR. For example, IKEA has a pretty thorough FAQ page, which furnishes customers with all sorts of information from product descriptions to shipping details. This eliminates the need for customers to contact CSRs in order to obtain such information.
The customer service in big businesses, on the other hand remind me of 5 star hotel buffets. They have the means to provide customers with every detailed FAQ pages and hotlines for every problem imaginable round the clock. Self serving is encouraged, as it reduces customer waiting time, increases cost efficiency, and improves customer satisfaction, giving customers the choice to choose the type of service that best suits them.
Yet, many big businesses are notorious for their lack of human touch. As banks set up ATMs to improve customer self-service, they lose out a great deal of human interaction time through which relationships can be built. The hotel manager will never fully win the hearts of his customers if he remains behind his buffet spread. He needs to meet his customers and interact with them. To prevent himself from becoming disconnected from his customers, Tim Westergren, founder of Pandora frequently travels across the US to meet Pandora Fans directly. Though he cannot reply all his users’ emails personally now (he used to answer all customer emails personally in the early years of his company), he ensures that every customer email receives a personal response from a real life human.
Ultimately, what sets a company apart from their competitors after product excellence is how far they can connect with their customers.
I would never forget the CSR at Apple who sent me a personal response email (within 3 days as promised), attached with scanned copies of the documentation with I needed to claim my rebate. Neither would I forget the salesgirl from Frederic Sai, a local clothing boutique, who waited patiently for me for 2 whole hours while I settled a family issue at her store. I’ve since remained a loyal customer of them both.
So, how have you connected with your customers today?
I cannot agree with you more on this subject. We have found that customer service is important in providing SEO services. I’ve had the privilege to work in multiple fields and positions. While I’m not a big fan of working a front-line customer service job, I do realize it’s importance to a client and to a business. Good customer service can be as easy as keeping your client informed by giving them periodic project status updates. We have received a lot of client feedback from unhappy customers who had fired their previous SEO company and hired us. Although it can cost more to provide this a CSR for your clients, I think customers appreciate speaking with a real person. This can positively affect your client retention rate. You can also note your customer service as a marketing point to gain new clients.
Yes that’s very true Michael, they really do appreciate speaking to a real person. And not only customers, us as well in our everyday lives. I make a mental note to myself to always, always reply with a human self no matter how busy I am. Sometimes I’ll forget, and I’m working really hard on it. And it’s amazing how people just open up (customers too) and relate to you when we present our humanness to them.
very good points you brought on this article. Interaction between the merchant and the customer is one of the most important things that help preserve customers and those who did not implement it simply misses the point.
i definitely agree with everything you said here.
Yes exactly! I think ultimately a genuine relationship, whether professional or personal, has to be maintained. Personally I tend to become ‘robotic’ myself and go into a problem-solving mode. My peers hate it when I do. Relationships cannot last that way. I have to keep reminding myself not to go into that mode, and I think the same goes for businesses too =D
I think the human touch is needed in all areas of buying/selling relationships. There is nothing worse when you really need to know an answer from a company and it is an uphill battle to fight your way through an automated system – which is pointed out that this is mainly the case in big businesses. I tend to prefer dealing with smaller businesses because you know you will be able to easily get in contact with their customer services.
I think it is just a case of finding the right balance of automating processes to speed up your service for customers and to also have a easy method for any customer to speak to a representative.
I place a lot of value on customer relationships and having a professional/personal approach when dealing with new and existing customer.
Yes I agree, James.
Balance is the key to everything, and in businesses to. I think in every relationship we have to work hard to keep a balance between becoming robotic and automatic, and fluid and relational. I think it’s part of being human. Thinking of addressing this is future blog posts though!
For some reason I have noticed as a few businesses owner that people tend not to look at the FAQ page, in fact some of them call our customer service with out even bothering to take a brief look at the FAQ page. Also in some businesses it is not always nice to have interaction with your costumers, it takes a lot of expensive time and not always worth the effort. For example I am the owner of a small internet shop and I really would appreciate it if none of my costumers will call me.
Good article by the way