Providing good customer service is the subject under discussion in an article by Dave Dougherty and Ajay Murthy in the September issue of Harvard Business Review.
As the authors point out: "Superior customer service can be an essential source of strength as companies emerge from the recession."
Research carried out by Dougherty and Murthy shows that customers have two key concerns when they contact a company for service:
* Does the frontline employee have the necessary knowledge?
* Can the problem be resolved on the first call?
However, those factors are rarely uppermost in the minds of customer-service managers.
"Most service centres continue to measure time on hold and minutes per call, as they have for decades," say Dougherty and Murthy. "Such metrics encourage agents to hurry through calls — resulting in just the kind of experience customers dislike."
The authors suggest that managers can obtain a more thorough understanding of customers' experience by drawing on information from customer satisfaction surveys, behavioural data from self-service channels and recorded conversations between agents and customers.
Managers should measure the proportion of problems resolved on first contact, and make necessary adjustments to address the failures. The aim should also be to ensure that interactions between customers and frontline employees are of a consistently high quality.
Dougherty and Murthy warn: "Some executives believe that irritated customers will forgive vendors and come back for more. Our research indicates that, on the contrary, alienated customers often disappear without the slightest warning."
What Service Customers Really Want
Dave Dougherty and Ajay Murthy, Harvard Business Review, September 2009
