Customer Service: Are You Acting or Reacting?

Great customer service starts from the very first time a customer comes in contact with a product or company.  Customers gauge their experience through a filter of feelings, thoughts, and emotions.  When a customer contacts a company with a complaint, it is the job of the customer service representative to solve the problem.  If the problem is beyond the employee’s control, the customer needs to feel that they have been heard and that reason was applied to the situation.  Customers need reassurance that the company cares about their problem and is working to resolve it.

Companies that are committed to excellent customer service devote time and resources to training employees on how to handle these situations.  There are customer service training books, videos, websites, and seminars devoted to specific techniques for conflict resolution, body language, listening skills, and communication strategies to help employees be more helpful and professional.

This adds up to a lot of time and money devoted to “putting out fires.”  But, what if companies could prevent fires from happening in the first place?  What can be done to make sure the problems simply don’t happen?  What can you do to make sure your customer service plan is about prevention, not just reacting?

Companies across the globe are using customer research to discover the reasons for complaints and the remedies for the issues behind the complaints.  Finding the common threads behind your customers’ complaints and solving them “before they happen” can save your company millions and create many more satisfied customers. Customer experience surveys are a powerful research tool that is used to pinpoint customer service issues.  These surveys are conducted online, via paper, by telephone, or a combination of methods allowing you to connect with your customers in the most convenient ways possible.

Getting to the bottom of problem areas gives a company the power to take action to fix issues before they have a chance to turn into complaints.  Then, the prescribed method is to resurvey periodically to gauge the effectiveness of improvement initiatives and discover any new problem areas.  A continuous improvement cycle keeps companies on top of small problems before they become big problems.

At NBRI, your results are benchmarked against other companies from within your own industry.  Your survey data is then examined using higher order statistics to determine the Root Causes of problem areas and to provide you with targeted recommendations for corrective action.  Act instead of reacting and you will have many more satisfied, loyal, repeat customers. Contact us today to get started on your next customer service initiative.