Being average means you are as close to the bottom as you are to the top. - John Wooden
CEOs rank customer service as the most important priority after growth, according a 2016 Gartner CEO survey. "CEOs seem to be concerned about improving customer service, relationship and satisfaction levels," said Mark Raskino, vice president and Gartner Fellow. In today's hyper connected, knowledge sharing economy, customer service is marketing.
A global customer service leadership survey ranked business challenges as: always-on service, personalized service, and faster service and the top priorities. The challenge is to deliver faster and smart service with strong self-service and personalized options. In the age of the customer, where access to answers through self-service and personalization is key to service differentiation, businesses need to invest in technology, talent and lean processes to amaze all stakeholders. Prior knowledge of customer (contact history, organizational visibility, purchase history, customer surveys, loyalty programs, advocacy activities, feature requests, and business related service level agreements) is vitally important to help companies develop strong service delivery models and capabilities. What can companies do today to bolster their ability to amaze customers? Amazing customers is a function of having a strong: culture, people, strategy, process, and technology (and the order matters).
To better understand the art of amazing your customers, I recently interviewed Shep Hyken, customer service and experience expert, Hall of Fame speaker, and a New York Times and Wall Street Journal bestselling author.
Hyken is a customer service expert, professional speaker and bestselling author who works with companies and organizations who want to build loyal relationships with their customers and employees. His articles have been read in hundreds of publications, and he is the author of Moments of Magic, The Loyal Customer and the Wall Street Journal and USA Today bestsellers, The Cult of the Customer and The Amazement Revolution, which was also recognized as a New York Times bestseller. His latest book is titled Amaze Every Customer Every Time. Today, Hyken is working with Fortune 100 companies and SMBs to help them build world-class service delivery capabilities.
Here are 11 lessons on the Art of Amazing Your Customers:
- Customer service is not a department. Service is a philosophy that has to be embraced by every person in the department - from the CEO to every single contributor. Strong customer service organization embrace a culture of transparency and accountability at every level of the organizations. Every employee is trained, empowered and rewarded for delivery excellent customer service, across the entire business. The passion to serve and to delight both internal and external customers is in the DNA of all high performing service teams.
73% of consumers say that valuing their time is the most important thing a company can do to provide them with good service -- whether on a call, in a chat, or while waiting for a service technician to troubleshoot and fix their product. - Kate Leggett, Forrester
Amazing customers means being above average, all of the time. All of the time is key. Another key is when there is a problem, you have to fix the problem and then restore confidence. Be positive, be accountable and have a sense of urgency. Restoring confidence is key to earning the right to your customer's future business. A good customer service mantra: "Dear customer, it's our problem, until it's no longer yours."
To learn more about how to amaze your customers, please watch the full video with Hyken. I also highly recommend that you follow Hyken on Twitter at @Hyken. Shep is one of the most social customer service and experience expert in the world. Please also share your advice on how to amaze customers with Shep and me.