The Retention Factor with Rosanne D'Ausilio
The state of customer service today is not good--to put it mildly--be it over the phone or using self service. Because 92% of people (BenchmarkPortal study) feel their call experience is important in shaping the image of a company, it reinforces the importance of branding the image of your company.
A recent survey* reports that the cost of customer service in 15 major industrialized economies causes businesses to lose a total of $338.5 billion per year when customers defect and/or abandon purchases.
Hardest hit industries include financial services, cable and satellite TV providers, and a variety of telecommunications companies. The average value of each lost relationship across all countries surveyed is $243 per year.
Why did customers leave according to this survey?
- Being trapped in automated service
- Being forced to wait too long for service
- Repeating themselves (a pet peeve of mine)
- Representatives that lack the skills to answer their inquiry
In other words, poor customer service.
When asked to identify what makes the biggest difference in improving satisfaction, these four were the responses:
- Competency
- Convenience
- Proactive engagement
- Personalization
Is any of the above new? I don’t think so. However, this survey seems to be the first large scale attempt to put an economic value on lost revenues from customer service across channels.
And it’s actually quite simple and basic to attain great customer service, but as years of surveys and customer service statistics reflect, it’s not easy to accomplish.
We believe strategies for success for world class customer service should include:
- Respond promptly
- Handle requests through the customers’ choice of medium
- Be brief and clear
- Reduce back and forth communications (especially in writing, i.e., email, kick it up to a phone call if it goes beyond two emails)
- Personalized service
- Delight the customer
What do we mean by delighting the customer?
- Inform and educate them
- Establish your expertise and professionalism
- Offer options
- Diffuse upset, anger, when and if necessary
- Escalate, if required
- Take Ownership of the call
Hire for attitude, teach aptitude.
ROSANNE D'AUSILIO, Ph.D., an industrial psychologist, consultant, master trainer, best selling author, executive coach, customer service expert, and President of Human Technologies Global, Inc., specializes in human performance management. Over the last 25 years, she has provided needs analyses, instructional design, and customized, live customer service skills trainings as well as executive/leadership coaching. Also offered is agent and facilitator university certification through Purdue University’s Center for Customer Driven Quality.
Known as 'the practical champion of the human,' she authors best sellers “Wake Up Your Call Center: Humanize Your Interaction Hub,” 4th ed, “Customer Service and the Human Experience,” “Lay Your Cards on the Table: 52 Ways to Stack Your Personal Deck (includes a 32-card deck of cards)—motivational and inspirational readings, How to Kick Your Customer Service Up A Notch: 101 Insider Tips , How to Kick Your Customer Service Up A Notch: ANOTHER 101 Insider Tips (http://www.customer-service-expert.com), and The Expert’s Guide to Customer Service (http://www.customer-service-expert.com/report.htm) as well as her popular complimentary ‘tips’ newsletter on How To Kick Your Customer Service Up A Notch! at http://www.HumanTechTips.com
Rosanne is also a Certified Call Center Benchmarking Auditor through Purdue University's Center for Customer Driven Quality. This certification training focuses on the access and use of key performance data to help better understand benchmarking results so as to advise on practical solutions for improvement.
For 10 years prior to starting her own organization, Rosanne had responsibility for marketing, budgeting, promoting and ultimately producing domestic and international computerized trade shows in the US, London, Belgium, and Frankfurt. She inaugurated, created, trained and directed a telemarketing on-site staff and was one of the first 150 people to attain CMP (Certified Meeting Professional) certification.
She is a columnist for TMCnet.com and Ask the Expert at supportindustry.com. She represents the human element on the Advisory Board of an Italian software company, authors numerous articles for industry newsletters, and is a much sought after dynamic, vibrant, internationally prominent keynote speaker.
*The Cost of Poor Customer Service: The Economic Impact of the Customer Experience and Engagement - sponsored by Genesys Telecommunications Laboratories an Datamonitor/Ovum.
For more information, please visit Rosanne's TNNW Bio.
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