The Art of Customer Service

This blog entry is a response to a topic suggestion by Douglas Hanna. It covers the art of customer service, a subject that is near and dear to my heart.

1. Start at the top. The CEO's attitude towards customer service is the primary determinant of the quality of service that a company delivers. If the CEO thinks that customers are a pain in the ass who always want something for nothing, that attitude will permeate the company, and service will be lousy. So if you are the CEO, get your act together. If you're not the CEO, either convince her to change her mind, quit, or learn to live with mediocrity--in that order.

2. Put the customer in control. The best kind of customer service happens when management enables employees to put the customer in control. This require two leaps of faith: first, that management trusts customers not take advantage of the situation; second, that management trust employees with this empowerment. If you can make these leaps, then the quality of your customer service will zoom; if not, there is nothing more frustrating than companies copping the attitude that something is “against company policy.”

3. Take responsibility for your shortcomings. A company that takes responsibility for its shortcomings is likely to provide great customer service for two reasons: first, it's acknowledged that it's the company's fault and the company's responsibility to fix. Second, customers won't go through the aggravating process of getting you to accept blame--if you got to the airport on time and checked your baggage, it's hard to see how it's your fault that it got sent to the wrong continent. (Except if you were a schmuck to the ticket counter person.)

4. Don't point the finger. This is the flip side of taking responsibility. As computer owners we all know that when a program doesn't work, vendors often resort to finger pointing: “It's Apple's system software.” “It's Microsoft's 'special' way of doing things.” “It's the way Adobe created PDF.” A great customer service company doesn't point the finger--it figures out what the solution is regardless of whose fault the problem is and makes the customer happy. As my mother used to say, “You're either part of the problem or part of the solution.” (By the way, as a rule of thumb, the company with the largest market capitalization is the one at fault.)

5. Don't finger the pointer. Great customer service companies don't shoot the messenger. When it comes to customer service, it could be a customer, an employee, a vendor, or a consultant who's doing the pointing. The goal is not to silence the messenger, but to fix the problem that the messenger brought so that other customers don't have a bad experience.

6. Don't be paranoid. One of the most common justifications for anti-service is “What if everyone did this?” For example, what if everyone bought a new wardrobe when we lost their luggage? Or, to cite the often-told, perhaps apocryphal, story of a customer returning a tire to Nordstrom even though everyone knows Nordstrom doesn't sell tires, what if everyone started returning tires to Nordstrom? The point is: Don't assume that the worst case is going to be the common case. There will be outlier abusers, yes, but generally people are reasonable. If you put in a policy to take care of the worst case, bad people, it will antagonize and insult the bulk of your customers.

7. Hire the right kind of people. To put it mildly, customer service is not a job for everyone. The ideal customer service person derives great satisfaction by helping people and solving problems. This cannot be said of every job candidate. It's the company's responsibility to hire the right kind of people for this job because it can be a bad experience for the employee and the customer when you hire folks without a service orientation.

8. Under promise and over deliver. The goal is to delight a customer. For example, the signs in the lines at DisneyLand that tell you how long you'll have to wait from each point are purposely over-stated. When you get to the ride in less time, you're delighted. Imagine if the signs were understated--you'd be angry because Disneyland lied to you.

9. Integrate customer service into the maintstream. Let's see: sales makes the big bucks. Marketing does the fun stuff. Engineers, well, you leave them alone in their dark caves. Accounting cuts the paychecks. And support? Do to the dirty work of talking to pissed off customers when nothing else works. Herein lies the problem: customer service has as much to do with a company's reputation as sales, marketing, engineering, and finance. So integrate customer service into the mainstream of the company and do not consider it profit-sucking necessary evil. A customer service hero deserves all the accolades that a sales, marketing, or engineering one does.

10. Put it all together. To put several recommendations in action, suppose a part breaks in the gizmo that a customer bought from you. First, take responsibility: “I'm sorry that it broke.” Second, don't point the finger--that is, don't say, “We buy that part from a supplier.” Third, put the customer in control: “When would like the replacement by?” Fourth, under promise and over deliver: Send it at no additional charge via a faster shipping method than necessary. That's the way to create legendary customer service.

Technorati Tags: customer service

Comments

[Del Nelson]

Basically aligned with the approach of W. Edwards Deming. Nice! We need more.

[Niko Neugebauer]

Very interesting ! As in 2 days i am leaving the firm, which has a "service-desk", i felt that it was important to send them a link to this article, in a hope that some people will find something interesting inside.

I agree with you on the nr.8, because i believe that everyone likes to get pleasant surprises, but i feel that it is also important not to overestimate, i mean to not scare the customer - a good example would be "to wait for 90 minutes in a Disneyland queue". A lot of the customers will leave or move on.

[John C. Randolph]

Your very first item is exactly why I believe Microsoft is headed for the same fate as the Soviet Union. Their current licensing scheme is all about making the customer prove he's not a thief. Stupid, and evil.

-jcr

[Josh]

Guy,
Another anecdote for great customer service I have seen displayed is when a steak is undercooked. You send it back and its cooked properly, but its also a better quality meat. This is the underpromise and overdeliver you speak of.

This actually happened the other night when my fiance and I were out to eat.

[Scott Gingold]

Guy, one more point, and admittedly I am biased in this regard as my firm (www.powerfeedback.com) does this every day for our clients. NEVER stop measuring the customer service that you are, or perhaps think you are, providing to your customers and clients. I also highly recommend using an outside independent firm to give the process more credibility and to build a greater trust factor. We have a saying; “if you don’t ask, they can’t tell!”

[bryan]

I can't believe there aren't 100 comments on this post! Maybe it's too common sense?

A great followup post could talk about how to identify those customers that you don't want - the ones that suck down your resources.

[Gary]

Right on.. at Tunecore, we have really prioritized customer support, as we have a complex process behind our business model.. and there is no stigma to support, the head of tech (me:) and the CEO have answered plenty of support mails. Some customers need more hand holding than others but we treat everyone the same. We have decided that until we get too big to do it, all customers will recieve absolutely top notch individual service, it's one thing we can afford to do as a small company. It's a favorite part of my job, as it usually has a definite ending with a happy customer :)

[Brad Hutchings]

In the real world, customer service can be intractible. I agree, always be nice and courteous and accomodating. I disagree with always solving the user's problem. Hang around developer tools circles as a customer and watch what inconsiderate idots other customers can be. It will change your perspective on customer service entirely. There are such a thing as high-cost customers, and 95% of the time, it's better if they are your competitors' customers.

[Eric]

I take great exception to this one:

"8. Under promise and over deliver. The goal is to delight a customer. For example, the signs in the lines at DisneyLand that tell you how long you'll have to wait from each point are purposely over-stated. When you get to the ride in less time, you're delighted. Imagine if the signs were understated--you'd be angry because Disneyland lied to you."

We in the music business like to call what Disneyland is doing here "lying." What I learn from this example is that I can't trust Disneyland to know how long it will take to get to the front of the line - what else can't I trust them on?

Delight a customer by setting their expectations reasonably and then meet them.

[Jerry Cederquist]

Guy, check out http://verdegroup.ca/ for an interesting take on the costs of not doing a good job with customer service.

I look forward to your blog -- always something thought provoking. Best regards.

[foo]

One important thing is for support employees to try and understand the customer's problem.

I recently called a company that provides a service to me for a monthly fee. I wanted to find out whether a fairly unusual case was covered by the service or not. Their answer was no, before I could even state what exactly the case I was inquiring about was. It doesn't help to hear "no" this early on in the conversation even if that is the ultimate answer to your question.

[Doug Hanna]

*blaming. Another important one is paying attention and keeping little details in mind. That sets the difference between customer service that's just acceptable and great.

[Margherite]

I may not always appreciate LL Bean's prices, but I'll never forget the day we returned a 10-year-old tent with one of the grommets having disintegrated. They gave us a new one. Unfortunately, I've learned to live with mediocrity in the companies I've worked for .. getting fired a number of times for being the messenger has taught me a few things about tech companies. Mostly, they rationalize that their product's "unique" features make up for every other corporate shortcoming.

[Doug Hanna]

Good post, Guy. :) You covered some of the important concepts like not blaming others.

[Diane Ensey]

I would stretch #1 even further, Guy, and say that a CEO that doesn't value employees (as well as customers and customer service) has a real problem. Why should an employee care about customer service if they know management doesn't care about them or sees them just as easily replaceable goods?

[Smittie]

Hum.

Doesn't sound like Guy is a big fan of outsourcing customer service to companies on another continent where English is not a primary language.

Aloha