Why customer service is failing and why its time to turn it upside down

Some innovators have seized market share quite visibly on the back of fantastic customer experiences and stellar service and support.. Which means you’re going to lose out to companies t

Why customer service

is failing and why it’s time

to turn it upside-down

There’s no nice way to say this:

Customer service, on average, ranges from disappointing to

The ‘good’ news is that expectations

are really, really low

When an issue comes up, we all expect

to be thwarted, delayed, frustrated and ignored on our twisted route to resolution

The bad news is that expectations

are rising fast

Some innovators have seized market

share quite visibly on the back of fantastic customer experiences and stellar service and support

We’re all starting to expect more

Chances are, you’re being

outplayed right about now

by one of these disruptors

Which means you’re going to lose out

to companies that don’t just ‘get’ great customer service but live it with every fibre of their corporate body – and

deliver it with outrageous consistency

Here’s the crux of the problem:

In most businesses, the customer service agent works for the company

In great customer companies,

the company works for the customer service agent

And this ‘upside down’ approach

changes everything

Some are in consumer markets, some in B2B.

Some sell shoes, others books,

or flights or data centers

But they all have one thing in common: They all empower their customer

service agents

It’s all about the people.

Great customer companies recognise

that their entire service culture and

every penny invested in customer delight comes to life (or dies a slow death) in

the hands of the people who touch

customers every day

So they treat them like the most important people in the company.

Which is exactly what they are

Yes, the new customer service heroes have fantastic service cultures that start from the very top.

There’s never any doubt in any corner of the business what the top priority is and how people should behave every day

And yes, they hire better, train harder and monitor more closely.

They only employ people with enormous empathy, pour their service culture into every one – and weed out the people who don’t get it

But then they do something else: they really give their customer service people the power to do their jobs.

Instead of tying their hands with rules, policies and productivity metrics, they free them to do what their hearts tell them; inspire them to do great things; and reward them when they do.

How do they empower their agents?

We talk about this in a recent blog post,

but it’s worth hitting the key points here

Customer agents are empowered

and encouraged to delight customers.Because they can't deliver great service with handcuffs on

The knowledge of the entire company

is at their fingertips

Because clueless support agents can’t help anyone

To help them find and enlist the very best people in the company (often with some kind of social collaboration tool).

Because no one is too important

to help a customer

So they can see a rich profile of each customer and their entire interaction history before they even open their mouths.

Because there’s no excuse

for ignorance any more

By using self-service channels for the easy, routine stuff, agents have more time to dig into the trickier cases.

Because customer service agents

are far too important to waste

Great customer companies tend

to have great customer communities that weigh in and help each other out.Because happy customers are the

best and smartest advocates

That’s what an upside down service operation looks like.

Led by empowered agents with the backing of the entire organisation and armed with the knowledge, tools and inspiration to create impossibly great customer experiences

So let’s take stock.

No matter what company or industry you’re in, you’re at a fork in the road right now

You can aim for ‘above average’

service for your market

You can treat customer service people like low-wage, high-turnover phone-fodder.And you can try to simulate empathy

while your competitors demonstrate it

Or you can aim high, empower your

agents, delight your customers and be the disruptor that eats all the market share

This tirade was brought to you by

on behalf of customers everywhere

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to find out what makes a truly stellar customer service team