In my efforts to teach others to bring a better experience
to customers in the buying experience, I often discuss the greetings and
messages that we have on our voice mails and call waiting systems. It doesn’t
matter what system we use, there is no replacement for person to person contact
and the ability of a customer to interact with a real, live customer service
representative.
There is a need for customers to be able to call businesses
to discuss problems, ordering, and any other interface question. Businesses
must understand that customers have such needs from time to time, and it is
more frequent if the business doesn’t practice great customer service in
everyday situations. If I spend money to purchase a product or service from
anyone, I expect that business to have the ability for me to call them on the
telephone and discuss any problems that I may have.
If you practice Gratitude Marketing you will have the means for
customers with problems to contact you. You will staff your call answering
facility with enough trained and polite representatives to answer customer
questions, resolve problems, and assist callers with solutions to their
problems. Reading from marketing scripts does not help the customer who wants
to cancel their order or service. Making it difficult for customers to do, or
stop doing, business with you will bring you a bad reputation and will lose you
business.
Let’s discuss the “automated” systems that most businesses
have now. First, they must be user friendly. They must allow the caller to
press a button and access a real, live representative without going through
multi levels of questions, most of which may not apply. By the way, no business
that I know that has tried voice recognition systems in lieu of allowing a
customer to press their phone’s buttons has continued to do so solely as a
manner of interface.
Second, there must be a choice for all the other problems
that a customer may experience. Just a given set of choices that may not
address the situation at hand is not enough. Always have a choice for the
customer to access a live representative. Automated messages such as “Your call
is very important to us” are an insult to the person who is on hold for over 5
minutes. If my call was important, you would have answered by now.
The announcement that “We are experiencing an unusually
large call volume” is a lie if it is always heard every time anyone calls your
business. Again, this is an insulting message that tells me that you don’t care
about your customers. The same is true when anyone on hold is bombarded by
messages asking them to upgrade the service when they just want a problem
solved.
Trained customer service representatives who have the power
to solve problems are so much better than the ones who only can follow a
script. If they cannot resolve a problem, access to a supervisor or manager
must be available. Gratitude Marketing means that if you accept my
payment your business has the ability to resolve problems in a manner that is
easy for me, the customer. If you cannot, you should get out of business now
for you will be unsuccessful in the future because your reputation will be your
downfall.
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