How to Avoid Customer Service Mistakes

Customer Service Faux Pas To Avoid : Though poor customer service is a bane worldwide, there are few businesses who manage superior customer services. The following points can help all businesses and marketing firms to provide customer service and satisfaction. The idea is to avoid the following customer service faux pas.

Difficulty: Moderately Challenging

Instructions

1. Considering customer service as an issue related to training: As companies provide training at huge cost, they expect customer service providers to somehow attract customer. But this leads to insincere efforts by the employees and providers as they are forced to delight a customer through bullying or coaxing. This also leads to employee resentment in case of failure to attract customer.

2. So, instead of blaming training or training employees in a particular fashion, it is prudent to allow employees to use their own ideas and methods to attract customer. This will motivate the employees and managements can get a good feedback on customer tastes and level of satisfaction.

3. Blaming poor quality of service on 'demotivation' of the employees: Companies searching for methods to motivate their employees look in the wrong places. Employee cynicism is always the result of a company's stress on self-interest and the main focus is internal.

4. The focus should be directed outward, towards the interests of consumers. This will change how a company functions at every level. Employees get demotivated because they cannot produce good results and this is due to the prevalent procedures and policies adopted by the business

5. Use of feedback from customer to discover what is wrong: Most of the companies use feedback from customer in the form of surveys. This type of mechanism is feared by the employees as they consider this effort as finding fault with them and a way to blame them.

6. Deceptive recognition: When an employee blunders on customer service front and then sets it right, this delights customer no end. The customer brings this to the company's notice and the employee is appreciated by the management. But here in lies the biggest blunder of customer service. This will encourage other employees to mess up and then correct the foul-up. This can be seen as a way to get appreciation on the job. Care must be taken to appreciate those employees also who do not mess up.

7. Competition based on price: It will be a costly mistake if price becomes deciding factor for the customer's purchase decision. It should always be value rather than price which should help customer decide on purchasing goods and services. Companies who deliver on basis of "personal touch" and "friendliness" are able to have competitive advantage for a very long period of time.

Tips & Warnings

• Building customer service relationships is not to be treated differently than building normal person-to-person relationships.

[cherrineb]

on 2/20/2009 Good evening,I have worked in customer service and your article touches on good points especially #6.