More on Customer Service as an Investment

Just a couple of days ago I wrote about the customer service you provide in your business as being an investment and we mentioned a Freshbooks blog from way back. While thinking further about this issue, I was clicking around and found an article in a newspaper that referenced… Freshbooks and their take on customer service.

So, since it’s so closely related to what I was just talking about a couple of days ago, I just had to share this article, too. Find it at The Globe and Mail. The article is written by Mark Evans, a consultant who uses content and social media to help businesses get more attention.

Evans writes that customer service is not just about correcting bad things from happening but also about building and leveraging a positive experience. For example, he mentions connecting with the customer to touch base with them and to show them that you value the relationship. And here’s how Freshbooks plays into the subject: Evans quotes Mike McDerment, CEO of Freshbooks, who says that a happy customer provides referrals. Although I might have disagreed with this a few years ago, I think that today’s socially connected world makes that true now. Just look at what interactions are like on Twitter: One person might tweet “boo! Invoicing day. My least favorite day of the month.” And someone else might respond with “Try Freshbooks. I like them.” A simple referral from a happy customer can go a long way.

And just when I thought I was wrapping up the topic, there was a link at the bottom of the article to a blog by Ben Yoskovitz. Yoskovitz is an entrepreneur with an impressive background and lots of interesting things to say and in his blog post , he reviewed the book BAM: Delivering Customer Service in a Self-Service World. His review/summary is incredibly helpful as he lists 9 points from the book that every entrepreneur should pay attention to. Number 1: Tie customer service to revenue and profits. Brilliant! Number 5: Tie customer service to surprise. There are others but those were my two favorites. Read this blog , change your customer service, and transform your customer’s experience!

Jessica Routier, IAC-EZ

Customer service: Expense or Investment?

When I was a kid, my parents needed a washer and dryer and they saw a set advertised so they bought it. It turned out not to be very good and they had a terrible time trying to get the company to service the products. But my parents had little recourse, besides haranguing the manufacturers. I was just thinking about their experience the other day and then comparing it to my own: Recently, I spent a lot of money on a new furnace for my home. The furnace is generally pretty good but there was a service issue that should have been fixed right away and wasn’t. I called and called and called. When the company finally responded, they sent several “specialists” out, none of whom could fix the problem, and every visit was scheduled for one day but the specialist came a day or two late. Unlike my parents, though, I don’t have to just “tough out” the situation and hope for that my constant phone calls would help. Instead, I can go online to my personal or professional network of thousands and I can make one single tweet or wall post or blog. And? The problem gets solved right away. 

Customer service has shifted yet again. Customer service used to not exist at all. Then, it was its own department – just a guy with a phone. Then it became trendy to call the sales staff “customer service” (even though they did mostly selling and almost no back-end support service). Today, lots of businesses claim to have great customer service but  really don’t.

The reason, as suggested in this excellent (but slightly older) post by Freshbooks, there is no clear and obvious ROI in customer service. Rather, the Sales department has clear metrics – sold products or not – but “happy customers” is ethereal at best. So, because companies can’t easily quantify the customer service experience, the customer service department (or skillset) is often the first thing to go. 

Unfortunately, that’s a mistake. A business may not easily be able to quantify customer service with obvious and conventional metrics, but the results of customer service are clear. If you ask me, I think customer service metrics can be found in the following places:

• Customer retention
• Long term profitability
• Ratio of positive-to-negative statements on social networking sites

How can your business make an investment into customer service? Here are a few ideas:

• If you can’t afford to hire someone new, train your staff to watch for negative customer service signs and – this is huge – empower them to address those signs immediately.
• Run frequent searches on various social networking sites for references to your company. For example, use HootSuite or Tweetdeck to keep a search running for the name of your company (along with various misspellings) to see what people are saying.
• Google the name of your company plus the words “hate” or “sucks” and see what comes up. While you may not be able to address every concern of a vocal minority, it’s a good way to see where some potential common problems are.

 Jessicca Routier, IAC-EZ

Tweeting for Customer Service: The Answer

In a previous blog we talked about the use of Twitter in customer service. It’s often thought of as a marketing tool but can also keep customers up-to-date.

In that blog we wrote: “Is your shipment of thneeds delayed because a lack of raw material? (By the way: big props to the first person who can write in the comments and tell me exactly what raw material a thneed is made out of).”

No one answered our query, which leads me to believe one of two things: Either people don’t know what a thneed is or they prefer real prizes over props.

So, “what raw material a thneed is made out of?”.

The answer: “Truffula tufts from the Truffula tree”.

Still not sure what we’re talking about? Take 24 minutes and 49 seconds to journey back to your childhood and be reminded:

Dr. Seuss’ beloved story The Lorax is a (still relevant) story about the tension between economic decisions and ecological decisions: Nature versus the marketplace. People require items but those items come at a cost (not just a monetary cost but an environmental one). That’s the reason we’re seeing aggressive emissions controls and recycling programs being put into place.

And there’s a broader lesson that can be learned when we take this story out of the ecological context and consider other influences as well. For example, the economic turmoil we find ourselves in now is the result of a type of mass cutting of Truffula Trees.

Thanks for the warning, Dr. Seuss! We’ve heard the Lorax’s warning about the environment; it’s unfortunate that we didn’t hear him warning us about the economy!

Jessica Routier, IAC-EZ

Tweeting for customer service

Twitter is a great way to improve customer service in your organization without spending a lot of money.

This article, published in the Ottawa Citizen, a newspaper from Canada’s federal capitol, describes a number of ways that companies are using Twitter to improve customer service. Read the article here.

Essentially, businesses are using Twitter as a customer service tool in two ways: As a proactive tool to keep customers up to date on the business and as a reactive tool to watch for negative feedback and address it immediately.

It can be tempting to use Twitter just as a marketing tool – which IS a great way to use it, but not the only way. You should also use Twitter as a customer service tool to proactively talk about what customers can expect and how corporate or economic changes will impact your business and ultimately how it will impact them. Running low on Red Dye #40? Is your shipment of thneeds delayed because a lack of raw material? (By the way: big props to the first person who can write in the comments and tell me exactly what raw material a thneed is made out of). Think about how you can incorporate at least 3 or 4 customer service tweets per day.

• Describe how people can get more out of your products.
• Keep people up to date on inventory
• Tell people about upcoming sales
• Proactively discuss and mitigate any problems or challenges people have with your product

And, you won’t keep everyone happy. Inevitably, someone will not like something you do and just might tweet about it. You can stay on top of that and respond appropriately. (Hint: “Appropriate” is not a barrage of flaming tweets). To stay on top of it, use a program like TweetDeck (which is a desktop-based Twitter tool) and maintain an ongoing search for mentions of your company or products (you should be doing this anyway, but watching it closely to monitor for customer service issues should be an important part of that process).

Jessica Routier, IAC-EZ