You can only stand out from the crowd if you are a member of the crowd. How often, as a customer, do you try and change to WOW customer service … the type that you normally can’t imagine? If it is often, would you consider yourself a customer service evangelist?
Consider creative people. Creative businesses conduct WOW customer service because they seek to complete something, to heal something, to change something for the better. To move from where they are now to a more centered, more complete place. You don’t get creative once everything is okay. In fact, we are creative because everything isn’t okay (yet).
Average or less customer service seems like the norm in many industries. In some, it’s so common that when we provide great service, we yield customers who feel like they’ve won the lottery, if only for a moment. But it doesn’t have to be that way.
Related: Some Great Story and Storytelling Examples to Study
Creating a customer service evangelist should not be rocket science, should it?
If you were asked to name the top 5-10 items that have the greatest influence on creating a customer service evangelist, what would your list include? Our agency often runs customer experience/service design workshops and this question is a key exercise in the workshop.
Start with this list when deciding where to improve your customer service. And don’t forget to get direct feedback from your customers.
Here are the best key ways to create a customer service evangelist business, in our opinion … in today’s social and online environment:
Customer facing employees.
Make customer-facing employees the ultimate customer service providers
The best use of a live support service channel is to be there for higher levels of service issues and the point of the issue becoming something big.
Self-service should free up your service staff to devote high focus to these types of issues. This will elevate the attention such subjects really deserve.
Wow customer service … keep detailed customer interaction to a minimum
The secret to delivering exceptional service is to actually not get too involved with customer requests. Consumer research indicates that when customers are looking for information and answers, they tend to not want to talk to people. The experience of today is moving to digital.
Wow internet reviews … resolve customer issues quickly
Noticed the pace of people’s daily schedules lately? Not much free time is there? Time is definitely at a premium. As a result, customers are increasingly choosing to self-serve.
Therefore your business needs to define a satisfying self-service. Easy to use is at the top of the priority list. For today’s time-starved customers who expect simple ways to get answers, your self-service has to deliver the right answer in the first attempt.
The best defensive back in the game of football does his best at anticipating what the quarterback of the opposing team will do next.
He wins if anticipates well. You need to do the same for your customers … being prepared for all questions and anticipating what question will come next.
Great customer service intelligence means giving them a correct and simple answer quickly. Then you need to anticipate the question that is coming next. Doing these things well takes the digital self-service experience to a whole new level.
Don’t underestimate bad customer experience consequences
Customers in the social age wield great power, don’t they? They have high expectations, lots of choices, and are less loyal as they used to be. So, often you only get one chance to make a great impression. Take the opportunity to cater to their service needs.
Customer service evangelist … make customer action options easy to find
Recognize that customers will occasionally want live support. Make that live support easy to find and access. Doing so does a lot to ensure customer confidence in your business.
It shows you place a high value on customer service. Can you think of a better differentiator?
Make mobile experience match web experience
Have you noticed that mobile devices go everywhere with your customers? They want the same quick response (or quicker) customer service responses from mobile devices as everywhere else.
And that demand is definitely growing. Digital self-service in the mobile channel will soon be the top dog … pay attention.
The bottom line
What’s missing is the concept of service. The desire to help clients achieve their goals rather than to assume you know what their goals should be. Talk about direct response metrics won’t help a client whose brand awareness is trailing by ten points.
Interestingly, top digital players like Yahoo! and Google do understand this. However, many in the industry are still the same arrogant bunch that went down in the first dot-com boom and will surely go down again, screaming “nobody gets it!” along the way.
Gartner predicts that by 2020, the customers will manage 85% of the relationship with a business without interacting with anyone in the business. Are you getting ready?
All you get is what you bring to the fight. And that fight gets better every day you learn and apply new ideas for your service to customers.
When things are not what you want them to be, what’s most important is your next step.
Test. Learn. Improve. Repeat.
Are you devoting enough energy to improving your continuous learning for yourself and your team?
Mike Schoultz is the founder of Digital Spark Marketing, a digital marketing and customer service agency. With 40 years of business experience, he blogs on topics that relate to improving the performance of your business. Find him on Twitter, and LinkedIn.
Digital Spark Marketing will stretch your thinking and your ability to adapt to change. We also provide some fun and inspiration along the way.
More reading on marketing strategy from Digital Spark Marketing’s Library:
Case Studies to Evaluate New World Marketing Concepts
How to Frame Marketing Messages for Optimum Engagement
Some Great Story and Storytelling Examples to Study
Jaw-Dropping Guerrilla Marketing Lessons and Examples
