Author:  Gary Barnett

A few months ago, BusinessWeek announced its “Customer Service Champs,” a ranking of the top 25 customer-pleasing brands.  Congratulations to the 20 Aspect Software customers that made the list!  

It’s no secret that today’s customers have extremely high expectations and competition among brands is fierce.  But, as the article points out, there are some surefire ways that you can elevate your customers’ experiences and potentially land your company on next years’ BusinessWeek list.

First, as the findings of the 2007 Aspect Contact Center Satisfaction Index underscore, empathy is one of the keys to earning high customer marks. The survey provides an indicator to quantify consumer satisfaction with the quality of their telephone and Internet interactions with companies and their representatives.  Many of the companies on this years’ BusinessWeek list work hard to put their employees in their customers’ shoes.  For example, USAA, which ranked #1 on the list, is an insurance company that serves military customers and their families.  As part of their training process, USAA’s customer service agents are required to put on military gear and consume the same “meal ready to eat” that a soldier might have in the field.  The exercise is designed to help agents understand what soldiers experience on a day-to-day basis so that they have a better sense of who their customers are, and how they feel and think. 

Employee loyalty also seems to be an important factor for the Customer Service Champs, with companies providing perks, benefits and bonuses relating to achieving overarching business goals. When employees are happy, productivity increases and turnover decreases, resulting in a higher level of expertise within the organization, and customer satisfaction scores tend to climb.

Another Aspect customer, Cabela’s, allows all frontline workers to borrow the company’s products for up to two months (such as a fishing pole or camping tent), as long as they write a company-wide review about it after the fact.  What a great perk for the employees!  And, it’s also smart way for the company to familiarize employees with the products so that they can empathize with customers if they’re having product issues and be very knowledgeable (another important agent attribute according to the Aspect Index) when they call to order new products.

Technology is another element of stellar customer service.  Some companies are using technology to improve their processes, raising customer satisfaction levels through increased efficiency.  Others are employing systems to help them track customer likes and dislikes, allowing them to increase customer satisfaction ratings through personalized service.

So, what are the important lessons that can be learned? Understand your customers, tie employee rewards to overall objectives, deploy the tools to help everyone meet their goals, and continuously evaluate and improve your processes, policies and procedures.

Have you discovered some winning customer service techniques that you are currently employing in your contact center?  If so, please tell us about them.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, August 7th, 2007 at 7:25 am and is filed under Customer Service/Consumer Demands. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.