As I watched my 3 year old daughter hammering away at anything that she could find with a flat head, I was reminded of a well-known saying from Abraham Maslow, “if all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail”. This behavior is not only innate to humans, but organizations as well.
Is your customer service organization trapped in the “law of the instrument”? Does every customer support interaction look the same to you because all you have is a system for logging customer calls? If it is, I would suggest that you consider some options.
Being able to deliver superior customer service begins with being able to recognize that not all customer interactions are the same, or need to be the same. If you are shadowing a customer service representative just for a few hours, you will see just how diverse these interactions can be. On one call, she is answering a basic “how to” question from a new customer. On the next call, she is being requested for information on how to return a defective product for replacement. And on the very next call, she could be talking to prospective customer who is shopping for a new product, who has looked on the company’s web site and has a question regarding a promotion. This ‘typical’ service representative needs to use slightly different processes and tools to support her in each of these different interactions. If all she has is a system for recording customer interactions, then she will not be able to do much to help her customers and her company is not likely to be bothered again by many of these customers.
Dennis Snow, a founder of the famed Disney Institute, a well-known division of the Walt Disney Company that consults on customer service, recently posted a great blog on customer service excellence called the “DNA of Service Excellence”. According to Dennis, organizations who deliver exceptional customer services have four common traits that they constantly hone on:
- The “Lens of the Customers” mindset
- Understand that “Everything Speaks” in your organization
- Create a “Wow experience” for your customers
- Having the tools and processes to “Set Employees Up for Success”
Leaving out any of these elements will greatly compromise the quality of your customer service.
As implied in Dennis’ 4th trait, don’t set up your customer service employees for failure. Provide them with a tool such as SAP CRM that enables them to deliver exceptional customer services. I invite you to check it out in this short demo video on YouTube.
Having the right tools for servicing your customers can make your customer service team a positive differentiator for your company instead of becoming the target of many tweets on Twitter or a featured story on CBS 60 Minutes!
- Hansen Lieu, Director CRM Solution Marketing, SAP | hansen.lieu@sap.com
Posted by sapcrmvoice 
