1. Hire the Best People You Can Find
The life blood of any service operation is the front line staff, the ones who have more contact with customers than anyone else.
2. Develop a Success Culture
The culture of a customer service organization is critically important. One or two bad apples can, and will, if not removed, ruin the barrel.
3. Look for the Real Source of Initial Customer Contacts
Most customers don’t contact your organization because of a customer service issue — at least not initially anyway. Look for what has caused the contact.
4. Look After and Empower Your Front-line People
Make sure your front-line people have the systems, information and processes they need to satisfy their customers during the first contact.
5. Be Proactive
If you have an on-going customer issue, never wait for them to contact you to check what has happened about their problem.
6. Focus on First Contact Fix
Focus on tracking, analyzing and removing the drivers of repeat contacts. Never fall into the trap of driving down contact resolution times to the extent that it risks not satisfying all of the customers’ questions or concerns.
7. Treat Complaints as a Blessing
Complaints are a gift — cherish them. Every complaint is an opportunity to make things right, review and improve your processes, and impress your customer. It’s the customers who don’t complain that go to a competitor — so make it easy to complain and put your best people at your complaint desk.
8. Coach, Coach and Coach Again
Training and then frequent coaching and feedback are a key factor in supporting customer service advisors to quickly achieve competence, and to build upon that to become role models for other staff.
Chamber of Commerce