How to Identify Customer Service Options for Seniors

Seniors are one of the most powerful consumer groups.

It's easy for a company to get so bogged down in getting more efficient at producing products that they overlook providing superior customer service. For businesses whose primary customers are seniors, this could be detrimental to the business. According to a study published in the "Journal of the Faculty of Economics," with this demographic, online chat and automated systems aren't sufficient to sustain a relationship. Older consumers prefer human interaction.

Instructions

1. Research your senior demographic. Channing Rollo, business intelligence manager, writes in a report "Research reveals that different segments of customers have very different expectations and preferences for customer service interactions."

2. Create a profile for the demographics you mean to serve by considering their age, gender, any disabilities and fixed or retirement income. In the book, "Start Your Own Senior Services Business," Charlene Davis writes, "If your clients are likely to suffer from dementia or other handicaps and the decision to use your services will probably be made by someone else, think about who that person might be."

3. Take geography into consideration as it relates to customer service options that the seniors in your demographics will find appealing. For example, weather conditions in the Northeast during the winter might prompt you to consider adding door-to-door delivery to boost your customer service image.

4. Subscribe to publications like "AARP the Magazine" and "Senior Living." Get a sense of the conversations seniors are having among their peers.

5. Create a survey to identity the services that the customers themselves care about. Keep it short and leave enough space for seniors to elaborate on their answers.

6. Develop more involved relationships with your customers. Get on the golf courses and talk to the customers directly. Visit retirement institutions. Interview working seniors.

7. Build a relationship with AARP and other organizations geared towards seniors. Send out information request surveys. They send packages to seniors periodically. The cost to insert your survey could be as little as $5 per insert, per address. Pick and choose the markets you want to mail your advertising to out of the 3.2 million customers AARP has said it reached in 2010.

8. Test online options and technology options to see which ones take off and which ones customers don't like to use. Test online customer service chat.

9. Study your competitors. Review their customer service options. Compare your competitor's customer service. Identify common threads that everyone else is doing that you should be doing. Then, identify services that many of your surveyors expect but don't get from your competitors.

10. Evaluate your current customer service policies and procedures. Pretend to be a customer and place a test call into your own establishment or send in a secret shopper. Note any problems that you see that need to be addressed. Pretend to be a customer and contact your competitors and note the difference.

11. Compare and contrast new policies and procedures you can implement to your customer service strategy. Calculate costs of various delivery options. Select the options that are the best opportunities for driving revenue.

12. Re-think the way you handle day-to-day business operations. Make them more customer-friendly. Oliver Wyman, a global management consultant, writes in a report created for utility companies that "Within the customer service value chain, excessive, untimely, or inaccurate work in one area often drives unnecessary work in others. By examining the customer service functions as a whole, you can uncover many opportunities to eliminate work."

Tips & Warnings

• Don't alienate the minority for the majority. All customers don't fit into a box, even if the majority leans toward a pattern.

References

• ClientLogic; Seniors, Teens and Everyone 'Tween: Selecting Service Channels to Fit Customer Demographics
• Start Your Own Senior Services Business: Adult Day Care, Relocation Services; Charlene Davis; 2010
• Oliver Wyman; Improving Efficiency in Customer Service without Reducing Customer Satisfaction
• "Journal of the Faculty of Economics"; The Demographic Ageing and Consumer Market; Mihaela State; 2008

Resources

• Branded Customer Service: The New Competitive Edge; Janelle Barlow, Paul Stewart; 2006
• AllBusiness; Aging Populations: Changing Personal Care Needs and Behaviors of Senior Consumers.
• AARP: Advertise with Us