Customer Service Shortcuts and Culture

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Customer Service Shortcuts

Customer Service Shortcuts and Culture

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It is easy to disregard customer service. Perhaps in many organizations it is quickly brushed over because there is no rocket science and, after all, it takes a lot of energy to do it right. Do you have a culture of customer service shortcuts?

How do you know you have good customer service? How are you measuring the success of your customer service culture?

Said or Done?

Many organizational leaders tell me that they survey their customers. Some suggest that management is carefully watching and monitoring both processes and outcomes. Others claim to be doing it digitally. They monitor social media, review sales data, and analyze lifetime value.

In many ways, all of those produce some form of evidence. Evidence is valuable and meaningful, but it may not be the entire story. Things are likely missing, valuable things that are overlooked, underestimated, or disregarded.

What is the culture of the organization? What are the habits, the traditions, and the values? I’m not just talking about what is said in the boardroom, at the quarterly meeting, or on a digital document otherwise known as the employee handbook.

What is the execution or organizational habits? What are the customer service shortcuts? None of it may be rocket science.

Shortcut Investment or Divestment

Many businesses invest in shortcuts. It is the auto-attendant telephone system, the ring the buzzer for help, or the website contact page. They invest in touch point reduction. It is the listen carefully because our menu options have changed, or it must have went into my spam folder.

Customers don’t hear reasons, they hear excuses. What they feel, is a lack of caring. What your execution is demonstrating, is a shortcut. Every action, or a lack of, has a cost. What can your organization afford?

Customer Service Shortcuts

It isn’t about well-crafted words on a document, it isn’t the glamorous pitch from the C Suite, or it is not necessarily about what is contained in the managers’ report.

It might be a part of all of those, but the biggest part of your culture is execution, the things that become values, traditions, and the brand.

There is value to what you say, but what will be remembered the most is what you do and how your customers feel.

Is it time to consider how you’re coming up short?

– 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.

Dennis Gilbert on Google+

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