Episode #121: Customer Service Mastery

Service provision should be linear but it isn’t. We receive great service followed by bas service. Why is that and how do eliminate the inconsistencies revealed?

Salespeople are always trying to assure their buyers that they and their firm are trustworthy and reliable. The follow through component of the sales process is when these two claims are tested. The salesperson can be doing a splendid job, but what about the rest of the support team? Are they backing up the salesperson’s efforts with their protection of the brand and are they bolstering the salesperson’s strong customer focus?

Jan Carlzon many years ago published a tremendous guide to customer service. He had the job of turning around SAS airlines and captured that experience in his book “Moments Of Truth”. I was reminded of Carlzon’s insights when I was checking into my hotel in Singapore.

One of Carlzon’s observations about customer service was the importance of consistency of delivery. For example, visualise the telephone receptionist answers your call in a pleasant helpful manner and you are uplifted by your exposure to the brand. The next staff member receiving the transferred call however, is grumpy and unfriendly. Now both your mood and positive impression plummet. You are suddenly irritated by this company, who have just damaged their brand by their lack of an ability to sustain good service across only two consecutive touch points with the customer.

Let me mention a customer service breakdown I particularly dislike here in Japan. You call just about any organization and you will get a very flat voice answering the phone saying in Japanese “XYZ company here”. You ask to speak with that very excellent and impressive member of staff, Ms. Suzuki whom you met recently at a networking event. The flat uninterested voice tells you that she “is not at her desk right now” and then stone cold silence.

The “may I take down your name and phone number so that she can call you back” bit is rarely offered. Instead, you are left hanging on the phone. The inference of the silence is that if Ms. Suzuki is not around, that is your problem and you should call back later, rather than expect a return call. Again, to Carlzon’s point, these inconsistencies of customer service directly damage the brand.

In this example, when I had previously met Ms. Suzuki, I was impressed by her and had a good impression of the whole organisation. The person taking the call has just put that positive image to the sword. This is what happens to us in sales. We do the right thing but elsewhere in the organization, someone else is sabotaging our good efforts.

We should all sit down and draw the spider’s web of how customers interact with us and who they interact with. We should expect that we all need reminding of the importance of good customer service for the image and credibility of the company.

First impressions count, but so do all the follow-up impressions, if we want to build a sustainable, consistent positive image with our customers. Consistency of good experiences doesn’t happen automatically. We have to look again at all of our touch points with our customers and ensure that everyone in the team understands their place in maintaining the excellent brand we have built up.