CUSTOMER FEEDBACK

Quoting an ARTICLE by customer service expert Shep Hyken:

"Customer service can make, or break, your reputation. Being known for your service earns you a reputation in the marketplace that can give you a competitive edge. Charging for these services can erode that positive experience. And you really don't have to charge more, because customers are willing to pay more for good service. The stats and facts prove that a large majority of customers- as high as 90%- would be willing to pay more if the company provided better service. So, rather than charge for each time a customer calls, build it into the price of your product."

It is mind-boggling to hear of some companies asking customers to pay extra for better customer support when in fact customer support should be an integral and vital part of every product or service companies sell. Why ask customers to pay more?

Consumers, Americans in particular, love to look at product feedbacks and surveys before they decide to purchase. Feedbacks are the barometer of a product's quality and reliability, and customer service is an integral component of product reliability. Customers would not mind paying more for a product or service as long as they are assured that they will have competent customer service when they need it. Any customer who finds a negative feedback about a product's reliability and customer service will definitely look elsewhere.

Bad news travels fast. Social media makes bad news travel exponentially faster. This is a fact. A company may spend millions on advertising and public relations only to see their marketing efforts trumped down by a negative feedback gone viral. That's how powerful feedback is. Feedback could be your best friend or your worst enemy.

In a perfect world, the ideal product should have the best quality backed up by the best customer service. Again, customers would not mind paying more as long as they know they're getting the best.

Read Shep Hyken's complete article HERE.

CALL BACK AND CSAT

Here's a fact: CSAT is inversely proportional to Abandoned Calls, i.e. the higher your abandon rate, the lower your CSAT. Any customer who had to call more than once to report or resolve an issue will more likely be a detractor. This is why we all dread those toxic days when calls spike through the roof and we wish we all had just stayed home. We already know it will be raining detractors that shift. It gets even worse when a customer who had been waiting forever for a live rep is put on hold by the rep. Most reps would probably start digging into their bag of TRICKS just to try dodging those incoming detractors.

In a recent ARTICLE about why we need to call back our customers, fonolo.com illustrated the financial cost of an abandoned call. It doesn't matter whether it's a customer calling about a complaint or a prospect calling to buy, every abandoned call adversely affects your site's profitability.

As a front line rep, you might argue profit doesn't matter much to you. But when you realize that your incentives and bonuses depend entirely on your site's profitability, you might rethink that argument.

The good news is, there is an option now available for customers to request for a call back instead of waiting on the line. This automated call back option would put the customer on a queue for a live rep to call back, setting the customer's expectation how soon a rep will call. I noticed this new option when I recently called my phone provider and was surprised to hear an option to request for a call back. Although I opted to wait for a live rep, the call back option certainly is a welcome improvement.

Imagine how convenient it would be for your customer to just request for a call back and then go about her usual task while waiting for the call back. This certainly beats the agony of waiting forever for a live rep to pick up.

With the option to request a call back, there's a much higher probability that the customer would be happy, or at least not irritable, once a live rep does call back. Happy enough to buy a product or give a good CSAT score.

Customer call back is a WIN-WIN solution. Everybody's happy. Read more about the article HERE.

ROCKSTAR TODAY, TERMINATED TOMORROW

We're all only as good as our last call. Often, no matter how best we took care of our customers, we still get hit with detractors. And when our performance (and survival) on the job is based on NET PROMOTER SCORE (NPS), it's easy to see why some reps resort to "vet moves" and other "unconventional tactics" just to avoid those detractors.

And it's not too difficult to spot who's doing those "vet moves". Usually, they prefer to sit far away from the team and often linger after shift doing "notes". And you really can't blame them for resorting to vet moves. Their job is on the line. I mean, thank heavens for pitstops but you can only be on pitstop once or twice before management endorses you to HR. And good luck with the so called HR "hearing" because that's just a formality as required by law but 99.9% your fate is already sealed.

Survival is one thing but using vet moves habitually just to be a top performer is something else. I must admit I had resorted to and tolerated certain "unconventional tactics" as a sup mainly for the team's survival and only for survival. I am not proud of what I had to do back then and I paid a high price for that. But to see teams and individuals proudly flaunting their top performer awards and rockstar status knowing they had resorted to vet moves and unconventional tactics makes me sick. They're only cheating themselves. Am I being bitter? You bet I am!

It's sad to see people habitually resorting to unconventional tactics and vet moves to avoid detractors instead of simply going the EXTRA MILE to make certain the customer is happy with the resolution.

Sure they're a rockstar today but what's their guarantee they won't get caught and terminated tomorrow?

Letting your customers feel that you are genuinely sincere listening to their concerns, providing solutions efficiently and going the extra mile for them are among the best ways to get your promoters. Go check previous notes or ask your customer if this was the first time they called about the issue. If this was the first time then GOOD JOB for solving the problem right away! First Call Resolutions almost always become promoters!

However, if customer had already called several times about the same issue and you feel there is a possibility that your customer is not too happy even if you were able to resolve the issue, it would be wise to let the customer feel that "although the issue was not resolved right away as much as we all wanted to, there was a continuous team effort on our part to help find the best solution for you." I know this is bull but this sure beats guessing whether you get a promoter from a customer you helped or getting a detractor for some other rep's failure to resolve the issue much sooner.

Detractors will always be there. It's a fact. But as long as you can CONSISTENTLY provide excellent customer service efficiently, then you should have more than enough promoters to cover for your detractors. That's how the NPS math works. That's how you become a true Rockstar!