Why Customer Service Is Unique
Do you know customer service? Many people believe that they have it mastered, that it is simple, and often that one size fits all. Have you considered why customer service is unique?
People make decisions every day, the business owner, the C Suite executive, the director, manager, or supervisor, even the front line employee. People, employees, those who represent the organization are making decisions about the customer.
Decisions Affect Outcomes
Decisions are made in the boardroom, on the plant floor, in the cubicle farm, at the coffee pot, and often while being face to face with the customer.
The decisions that you or anyone in the organization make will change how business is done. Decisions are made based on the organization culture. The values and beliefs that are carried forward form an understanding. Spoken, written, or symbolized it is in the behaviors of the team.
Have you considered how culture impacts the decisions made about the customer? How is your culture conditioning decisions? Consider this:
- Products are sometimes made before you know the customer.
- A customer always has the right of refusal of the offer.
- Customized work can be costly if the customer doesn’t like what you deliver.
- For customized or client based work you typically must find the customer first.
- The order you’ve taken is a promise. The promise is to deliver what the customer believes they are about to receive.
Customer Service Is Unique
One size doesn’t fit all. One approach is not always the best. How your business positions the culture of customer service will have everything to do with the decisions employees make.
You can build a great product, fulfill orders, and work towards building a brand worthy of great admiration and respect. You can do it in more than one way.
When customer service is based on rules, policies, and procedures it is not a culture of customer service, it is a position of us against them.
Us against them may be a signal. A signal that you’ve forgotten about how your customer is unique, a signal of the beginning of the end.
– DEG
Dennis E. Gilbert is a business consultant, speaker (CSPTM), and corporate trainer that specializes in helping businesses and individuals accelerate their leadership, their team, and their success. He is a five-time author and some of his work includes, #CustServ The Customer Service Culture, and Forgotten Respect, Navigating A Multigenerational Workforce. Reach him through his website at Dennis-Gilbert.com or by calling +1 646.546.5553.
