| |
|
|
Common Mistakes When Using Customer Service Measurements |
 |
|
|
| Publisher: |
Sam Miller |
| Date: |
2007-12-18 |
| Word count : |
503 |
|
| Ranking |
Click at the star to rank |
| Ranking Level |
|
0 |
| No. ranking |
0 |
|
|
|
| |
Sponsored Links
If you want to further please and serve your customers, it is imperative that you determine the level of their satisfaction in products and services your business provide. This is a very basic transaction when setting customer-business relations. Through the years, companies have been recognizing the fact that the basic key to their success is to get to know customers better and strive to satisfy and serve them well. Through the years, companies have been actively adopting customer service measurements in aim of gauging the level of customer satisfaction. However, experts and company research aficionados attest that there are usually misconceptions and misrepresentations when doing such efforts. Thus, it is advisable that you recognize and familiarize yourself with the usual flaws or mistakes when performing and using customer service measurements. Those commonly committed errors are as follows. - Customer service measurement covers inappropriate population. Before performing customer service measurements, it is essential to target the study on appropriate customers. The survey should be administered on actual customers who know and use the products and services well instead of people who do not even know the products or the brand itself. Also, it is important to determine and set the demographics of the potential respondents to the study. Focusing on customers with higher purchasing power would be more advisable. - The customer service measurement program does not cover sufficient volume of respondents. When determining customer satisfaction level, it is advisable that your business strive as hard to cover a bigger percentage of customers. You simply cannot determine satisfaction level based on just a few of the customers. In statistics, a 90% minimum or greater level of confidence with a 10% error rate is ideal and lower than that could render the measurement inappropriate and ineffective. - The customer service measurement is based on an inaccurate hypothesis. Look at the questions employed. Are they appropriate? Will the questions solicit answers that would measure customer satisfaction level? If not, you should look at the original and applied assumptions and see if there are modifications or changes needed. Customer service measurements would render futile if the basic concepts and assumptions are not appropriate in the first place. - The customer service measurement is using ineffective or technical words. The common mistake among different customer service measurements is that such studies use vocabularies that are not easily understandable. Remember that technical terms and jargons might seem too common for you, but for your customers, they might not be too familiar with such words. Misunderstandings on words would surely arouse discomfort among customer-respondents of such customer service surveys. - The terms used are overly generalized. If the assumptions and questions are also general instead of specific, the customer service measurement would surely be ineffective. Time and attention should be particularly allotted if you are to run a customer service measurement program. You should bear in mind that the data you would be attaining from such surveys would be essential in gauging the level of satisfaction in your business' products and services.
|
|
| |
|
Common Mistakes When Using Customer Service Measurements Keywords: |
|
|
|
customer customers service Common Mistakes When Using Customer Service Measurements Management Business |
|
| |
|
|
| |
| |
|
Related Article:Common Mistakes When Using Customer Service Measurements |
Collapse All
|
|
|
| |
 |
|
Tim Millett |
2008-03-16 |
|
|
|
Title: Good Customer Service
|
|
Good customer service is the backbone of any business. It permeates through every level of the organisation – from the dedicated customer service team, right through to the managers who deal with customer queries, albeit perhaps indirectly. The term customer service relates to everything a company does to benefit the people they serve. Because the first port of call we make when something goes wrong is usually to the Customer Services department, we often assume that customer service is the process that exists merely to correct mistakes. However this is very far from the truth. Customer service is behind every single action a business performs. After all, every business serves customers of one kind or another – whether it is people involved in other businesses, or the general public. It’s important therefore to keep this in mind on a daily basis. Sales training is often beneficial at all levels of a business, to ensure that the rights skills are learned and used to keep customer service standards as high as possible. When conducted effectively, the Sales process is an integral part of providing outstanding customer service, rather than detracting from it as many people think. Sales training also helps to educate those who aren’t in direct contact with customers; appropriate training can often lead to a better understanding of the company as a whole, and the effect everyone’s actions have on the end result of a transaction. Good customer service goes beyond doing the right thing, however. It can be a crucial part of developing a business to enjoy higher levels of success. Just as some companies stand out for delivering poor customer service, other companies can stand out just as much for ensuring their own customer service levels are as high as they can possibly be. Customer advocacy, or referrals, respresent a direct spin off benefit of providing good customer service. And “Net Promoter Scores” (NPS) research conducted by Mark Ritson (Associate Professor of Marketing at Melbourne Business School) shows that these customer recommendations have a proven link to future business growth. Indeed, companies with high high NPS scores such as Bendigo Bank, Singapore Airlines, Aldi and HSBC are predicted to grow faster than their respective competitors whereas companies with low NPS scores were predicted to grow at a much slower rate than their competitors. Being pro-active in providing outstanding customer service will ensure that your business not only enjoys less in the way of customer issues, but it also grows at a faster rate, because it is known for looking after its customers. Timothy Millett, head trainer at i perform, has extensive expertise in performance training, sales training and customer service training. Tim has helped participants from organisations such as SWIFT and UBS achieve peak levels of personal performance. For more information please visit Sales Training
|
| |
|
|
Beth Banning |
2007-09-07 |
|
|
|
Title: Customer Service: 3 Typical Employee Mistakes and How to Handle Them
|
|
Co-authored by Neill Gibson. Do you want to increase profits dramatically? One of the best ways to do this is to focus your attention on your current customer satisfaction and good customer service skills. Profitable businesses don't just rely on attracting new customers, they work at encouraging existing customers to buy again and to provide positive word-of-mouth advertising to their friends. This can only happen when employees learn leading edge customer relationship management skills. Read on to discover the three most common customer service mistakes as well as how to handle them before they occur. Lately, it seems like walking into any business and getting even decent service-such as a simple smile or a "How are you?" is a cause for celebration. We actually found ourselves thanking a hostess at a restaurant for her pleasant manner. "Customer Service" is one of the most overused phrases in business, and it's fast becoming an oxymoron. You can advertise heavily and cut prices to entice new customers, but unless you persuade some of those customers to return, your business won't remain cost-effective for long. Three Employee Mistakes and Their Remedies Mistake #1 --Thinking Customer Dissatisfaction is a Problem to Be Avoided. Many employees have an unfounded belief that dissatisfied customers are a problem. Because this kind of thinking is typical, when a customer approaches with a dissatisfaction or a problem, many employees will get nervous, defensive, and confused about what to do. Managing customer complaints with grace is vital to the overall stability of the company and its profitable growth. It requires that your employees develop customer service skills that identify both the root of the problem as well as value-based customer solutions. Remedy: The very first step is to offer employees a new perspective, one that welcomes customer dissatisfaction. It should be clearly explained to them that all customer complaints offer a golden opportunity to interact with the customer and enhance customer satisfaction. Action tip: Do some in-house role-playing with your employees. Have one of them act as the employee with the other taking the part of the customer. Give them an opportunity to practice handling dissatisfied customers. Mistake #2--Wanting To Be Right We've all been raised in a society where being right is practically a necessity, if not just clearly more preferable to being wrong. In fact, the need to be right has almost become a knee-jerk reaction when we are confronted by someone with an opinion that is different from our own. We immediately begin to look for evidence that proves how we are right and the other person is wrong. When your employee unconsciously reacts this way to your customer, the result is a serious breakdown in your Customer Service process that can easily lead to the loss of a customer for good. Remedies: To begin with, it's critical that your employees know that your top priority is customer satisfaction. This may sound ridiculously simple and you may think that it goes without saying, but very often what we think should be obvious to the most casual observer, in many cases, is not clear at all. Action tip: A good way to start getting the message out is to post signs around your place of business reminding everyone that customer satisfaction is top priority. Mistake #3--The Belief that it's "Just a Job" Very often people work at a job when they have no understanding as to why they're there, beyond the need to pay their bills. This lack of connection to what's important to them about their job creates an "I just work here--they're not my customer." mindset. If Customer Service is any contact (whether active or passive) between a customer and a company that significantly affects the perception of that company by a customer, it is essential for your employees to see themselves as an integral part of the company. Remedies: Encourage employees to identify what they personally value in their lives and at their job. This discovery process will give them an opportunity to see their job as something that is personally important to them, and not simply as a way to pay their bills. This process will also help decrease your employee turnover and increase job satisfaction. Action tip: Have each employee participate in a "values exercise" and then identify at least one way in which their job supports what they value. If you value your employees, they will come to value you as an employer. If you're interested in discovering new methods to effectively manage your employees and aid their personal growth as well as the growth of your business, , sign up for our free thought-provoking and motivational Weekly Action Tips eMail series at: http://www.FocusedAttention.com/cmd.php?ad=317928. Or visit us at: http://www.FocusedAttention.com
|
| |
|
|
Jim Peters |
2003-11-18 |
|
|
|
Title: Common Advertising MISTAKES
|
|
One of the mistakes most often made, is not looking at your product or service announcement from the point of view of your customer. Stand back and look at what you are offering, how can you present that service or product in such a way that it will appeal to you. If you are offering a service, why should someone buy it from you, rather than the other 1000 people offering that same service? Sometimes it's a little tough to be objective when looking at your own ad copy. I look at ad copy everyday and to be honest I'm really shocked at some of the things that I see. I'll save space here by not repeating all of them. Rather I will list a few ways to get your offer, be it newspaper,direct mail or e- mail, thrown in the trash immediately. There may be some things here you don't want to hear or believe, but take my word for it the things I'm listing can make the difference in success and failure. I will talk only about your initial contact advertising, follow up contact takes a completely different tack. Listed here, not necessarily in their order of importance, but rather in the order in which they can get your message trashed are just a few of those Mistakes. 1. Not addressing your offer to the recipient. (I know, you can't take the time to address all that mail)I would say at least 50% of the people receiving e-mail not addressed specifically to them, will immediately hit the delete key. If your offer is so fantastic that you can loose 50% of your audience right out of the gate, by all means send out mail with your self, both as the sender and the recipient. Or addressed to friend@whatever.com. You get the idea. You will also find this tactic addressed in the anti spam legislation. ( Note: This does not apply when sending mail to an opt in list. ) 2. Using a vulgar or unrealistic sender address, I'll leave the vulgar to your imagination. As far as the unrealistic, dontmiss@this.com or just4u@me.com again you get the idea. You will also find this tactic addressed in the anti spam legislation. For the sake of ease (math was never my long suit) let's say this tactic looses you another 10%. 3. No Subject or a subject that causes an immediate delete. Now what could be a subject that could cause that? Well, how about. EARN A MILLION DOLLARS WITH JUST 1 TIME INVESTMENT OF $20. 00 or any variation of that theme. Again you get the idea. Now you may well be saying to yourself, but that's what my program offers. That's wonderful, but in order to get someone interested in that program, a different approach is needed. Something like:Income Opportunity 5 minutes of your time could be the difference. or:Home business opportunity! Let's Talk. What can a grandiose subject line cost you, we'll say another 10%. 4. The cc: field filled with dozens of addresses or the To: field for that matter. If you need to send the same e-mail to more than 1 recipient use the bcc: field. If your mail program does not offer a bcc: field GET ONE THAT DOES! There are so many reasons for this it would take another entire article to address all of them. But the main one in my opinion is you do not have the right to advertise those addresses to the world. It is very bad netiquette. You loose another 10% 5. HTML other than url's. There are many, many people out there that don't have the $10,000 set up that you have, and their mail programs DO NOT translate HTML into anything but gibberish. If you want your message to be read, write and send it in plain text. The percentage here is probably higher but again we'll say 10%. 6. Sending e-mail the size of War and Peace. Here again there are a number of reasons not to do this. Besides the main one, there are a lot of people out there that are limited in the amount of space their mail server will allow. Mine (yes, I still maintain one of those free addresses) for example is 2000k. When my inbox, saved mail and drafts exceeds that amount my mail STOPS. Not 1 day goes by that I don't receive at least one 75 to 100k e-mail. 20 of those and I'm out of business. The other important reason, the recipient just won't take the time to read a book in there e-mail. A message of that length needs to be on a web page. Opp's we lost another 10% Ok, let's examine what happens when we make all those mistakes in sending out 1000 of our e-mail ad's. Right off the bat we loose 50% by not addressing our offer to the recipient. That reduces our mailing to 500. We loose another 10% for our return address. Were down to 400. 10% more for no subject, now were at 300. We decided to advertise those addresses our up-line sent us to the whole world and lost another 10%. Now were down to 200. Our new e-mail program is really neat and we put flowers and red, white, and blue stripes on our outgoing messages, now were down to 100. We had such a great story to tell and we were just so excited about all the neat stuff we spent 2 whole hours writing down every detail. You just lost your last 100 potential customers. Granted, I have never received a single e-mail that contained all of those mistakes, but it only takes 1 or 2 to significantly reduce your response rate. You can't afford to let all your efforts and hard work go to waste by making these easily correctable mistakes. "Your Success Is Our Success" jbp [ jim Peters is Manager of NSI "SOLUTIONS". NSI specializes in custom website design, promotion, maintenance, domain registration, site hosting, site and graphic design, as well as e-commerce packagesfor small to medium sized companies. In other words "SOLUTIONS". Copyright © 2003 by NetServe International, Inc.]
|
| |
|
|
Jeff Mowatt |
2008-05-05 |
|
|
|
Title: How not to Plan your Companyâ??s Future - 5 common mistakes when identifying customer needs
|
|
How not to Plan your Company’s Future 5 common mistakes when identifying customer needs By Jeff Mowatt When managers plan their business strategies, common sense dictates that these game-plans should be in line with customer needs. The first step in planning is therefore to identify customer preferences. Unfortunately, most conventional approaches to determining customer needs are flawed. Here are five of the most common methods used to gather customer opinions along with their drawbacks. Keep these often-made mistakes in mind when planning your business strategy. Mistake #1 - counting cash One way to find out what customers think - indirectly at least - is to look at revenues. The assumption being that if revenues are increasing then customers must be happy. Dangerous. A repeat customer isn't necessarily loyal. Customers may come back more by default than desire. If that's the case, the moment your competitor finds a way to truly satisfy your customers, those repeat customers will abandon you. Or, if your team is providing support services to internal customers, you may be setting yourself up to be outsourced. So, even though your revenues may indicate that you have happy customers, unless you do the research, you are potentially vulnerable. Business leaders whose companies endure are those who do not just assume that customers are happy, they create the right systems to know it. Mistake #2 -- counting complaints Some managers assume that if they merely reduce the number of customer complaints, they are satisfying more customers. In reality, fewer complaints often mean that fewer customers are angry enough to complain. It doesn't necessarily mean that they are happy. When it comes to measuring complaints keep in mind your own experience when visiting a restaurant with mediocre service. It wasn't bad enough to complain. But, it wasn't good enough to bring you back. If the restaurant manager was only counting complaints as a measure of customer satisfaction, he or she'd be off track. Mistake #3 -- trust focus groups A popular method of collecting customer information is using focus groups. This is where a manager or consultant gathers a group of customers and asks their opinions. Consultants often like focus groups because the information looks scientific and they can charge a fee for conducting them. It's been my experience, however, that focus groups tell you a lot more about group-think than anything else. In virtually every focus group I've been asked to observe, opinion leaders in the group influence the responses of others. That alone renders focus groups practically useless in terms of finding out what individuals really think. Mistake #4 -- paid phone surveys The most promising way of identifying preferences is to have a one-on-one conversation with the customer. The problem is that the conventional approach to interviews receives miserably low response rates. Imagine you're at home one evening when the phone rings. An unfamiliar voice on the line says, “Hello Mr. or Mrs. So-and-so, we're conducting a survey on…� You're thinking, “Not again,� and end the conversation - click. As an alternative, rather than using standard telephone surveying, the manager of the company uses a resource I often recommend to my clients -business students. Picture yourself again at home. The phone rings. When you answer, a youthful voice says, “Hi, I'm a business student at the local university. For my marketing class I'm doing a project where I'm conducting a survey on such and such.� You find yourself saying, “OK, kid, let's make this quick.� Response rates soar. Bonus - students work for the price of Kraft Dinner! Mistake #5 - trust high ratings On a customer survey, you can ask, “Overall, are you satisfied with the service?� And you may get results that show that 96% said, “Yes.� But be careful how you interpret those results. This is where many managers assume that they're getting an A+ score. Think of the question again; it asks if overall you are 'satisfied.' In other words, the survey is asking if the service is adequate. By responding 'yes,' customers are not saying that they were impressed or even pleased-merely that they were satisfied. It doesn't mean they feel loyal. Imagine your sweetheart talking to a friend and describing you as being adequate. You'd probably see that as reason for concern! It certainly isn't reason to think you're getting an A+ performance rating. Yet, that's exactly what so many managers think when they see a 96% customer-satisfaction rating. The lesson is that managers need to stop interpreting high percentages the way we did in high school. If you have a 98% customer-satisfaction rating you may still have serious problems in customer loyalty. According to marketing research expert, Dr. Mike Heffring, “It has been shown that it's the percentage of people who give you excellent or outstanding ratings (e.g., nine or ten on a ten-point scale) who matter. If you increase that percentage, then market share actually moves. If you don't, then you may feel better if the percent satisfied goes up but the impact is insignificant.� Identify what customers really think In other words, when it comes to planning your corporate strategy, the focus becomes, What do managers need to do to shift customers from being 'satisfied' to being 'delighted'? Just make sure as you do this, that you also ask yourself if your current information is telling you what your customers really think.
|
| |
|
|
|
2007-11-01 |
|
|
|
Title: Customer Service KPIs Help Improve The Overall Performance
|
|
Customer service is the most important factor of any organization. This is what will speak about the overall look of the company. Only when the goals are mentioned with the good definitions, good steps can be taken to progress towards them. Measurements however should be taken in the right direction, and these measurements are the KPIs.
Most of the time, one of the main key performance indicators taken into consideration with the customer service organizations, is the number of calls that answered during the first minute. No matter what the indicators are, all of them should help with the goals of the company. They should not only be considered for a long time, they should be measurable as well.
Goals could change, and it could also help achieve great heights for the company. This would be done only with the right KPIs related to customer service. Important metrics need to be tracked, as only then the problems can be sorted easily. When it comes to customer service KPIs, it is a good idea to look at the ways that the service is being offered.
The first thing that should be taken into consideration is the average cost that would happen with each option of service being used. It could be via call centers, email or some other services. A lot of companies will move the customer service options to those that are less expensive. Every year all the definitions of the KPIs should stay consistent.
Using the KPIs related to the customer service, the company should be able to make a lot of profits. If there are any KPIs which talk about repeating same customers, it will not be worth it. The idea is to serve new customers as well, and to get a great deal of benefits out of it. The indicators from the KPIs should definitely be quantifiable.
If the customer service is improved based on the KPIs, there is sure to be an increase in revenue, and there will be new sales. The staff which provides the customer service must be evaluated, and they must be taken into consideration. The overall level of their performance is very important to look at.
The outcome as well as process for improvement must be looked at closely after the results of the indicators are taken into consideration. Even with customer service, great focus must be there on the areas so that the company can excel. By looking at this, there could be a great chance to make the face of the company better.
Though products and services should be served according to what they need, they should be of proper quality. The company should also have a good knowledge of customers, and the environment should be pleasing. There should be great expertise with the product, and the responsiveness should also be good.
Being customer focused will be the highlight for any company, and if the indicators are right then it would be all set to give the company revenue in great amounts.
|
| |
|
|
|
2007-07-11 |
|
|
|
Title: Measure Customer Service Performance: How To Treat A Customer Like A Customer
|
|
There are many measurements and choices of what to measure in order to decide whether an adequate guarantee of customer service is being met. However, it is unfortunate that many businesses select the wrong factors to measure or the select the correct elements to measure but make some logic leaps which means the collected data is false or misleading.
A frequent error is to make the assumption that any two or more metrics can separated from the others. As an example, a business call center may measure an employee's performance level by setting maximum average times to complete a customer call. On the corporate level, management may count the number of calls handled during a specific time period and assume that more calls answered means better service.
In fact, a large number of calls handled may reflect poor service quality rather than great service. If the service is so poor that customers don't want to deal with the call center--which unfortunately happens fairly frequently. By the same token, spending longer on each call doesn't mean that the customer is receiving better service. The number of calls has been used as another measure of satisfaction. While fewer calls may mean that fewer customers have complaints about the product or service, it may also mean that the wait times were so extraordinarily long that people simply gave up and hung up the phone.
So, it's important to use enough indicators to make sure you are getting metrics which are measuring different aspects of customer service quality. Another common error which companies make is to use metrics which are easy to track, but that mean little to the satisfaction of the customer. An example would be the amount of non-customer time which the employee spends making notes or acting of the information which the customer has given.
In addition to measure things which are not contributing to customer satisfaction, by choosing the wrong call center performance metrics, the call center management may present a false picture to the employees about what is and is not important to promote customer satisfaction. If the pressure on the employees is only about increasing the number of calls which they can handle during any one period of time, the employee may feel pressured to do almost anything just to get the customer off the line quickly.
When a company is assessing the quality of the customer service which it provides, it's important to first choose enough metrics, so that both scope and number is measured. Second the measurements chosen should rate the things which are important from the customer's point of view. Employees should also understand what is the important factors which they are being rated for their own performance. The employee must always have a clear picture of what is and what is not meant by the term 'quality of customer service.'
|
| |
|
|
Jeff Mowatt |
2006-09-18 |
|
|
|
Title: How not to Plan your Company’s Future - 5 common mistakes when identifying customer needs
|
|
How not to Plan your Company’s Future
5 common mistakes when identifying customer needs
By Jeff Mowatt
When managers plan their business strategies, common sense dictates that these game-plans should be in line with customer needs. The first step in planning is therefore to identify customer preferences. Unfortunately, most conventional approaches to determining customer needs are flawed. Here are five of the most common methods used to gather customer opinions along with their drawbacks. Keep these often-made mistakes in mind when planning your business strategy.
Mistake #1 - counting cash
One way to find out what customers think - indirectly at least - is to look at revenues. The assumption being that if revenues are increasing then customers must be happy. Dangerous. A repeat customer isn't necessarily loyal. Customers may come back more by default than desire. If that's the case, the moment your competitor finds a way to truly satisfy your customers, those repeat customers will abandon you. Or, if your team is providing support services to internal customers, you may be setting yourself up to be outsourced. So, even though your revenues may indicate that you have happy customers, unless you do the research, you are potentially vulnerable. Business leaders whose companies endure are those who do not just assume that customers are happy, they create the right systems to know it.
Mistake #2 -- counting complaints
Some managers assume that if they merely reduce the number of customer complaints, they are satisfying more customers. In reality, fewer complaints often mean that fewer customers are angry enough to complain. It doesn't necessarily mean that they are happy. When it comes to measuring complaints keep in mind your own experience when visiting a restaurant with mediocre service. It wasn't bad enough to complain. But, it wasn't good enough to bring you back. If the restaurant manager was only counting complaints as a measure of customer satisfaction, he or she'd be off track.
Mistake #3 -- trust focus groups
A popular method of collecting customer information is using focus groups. This is where a manager or consultant gathers a group of customers and asks their opinions. Consultants often like focus groups because the information looks scientific and they can charge a fee for conducting them. It's been my experience, however, that focus groups tell you a lot more about group-think than anything else. In virtually every focus group I've been asked to observe, opinion leaders in the group influence the responses of others. That alone renders focus groups practically useless in terms of finding out what individuals really think.
Mistake #4 -- paid phone surveys
The most promising way of identifying preferences is to have a one-on-one conversation with the customer. The problem is that the conventional approach to interviews receives miserably low response rates. Imagine you're at home one evening when the phone rings. An unfamiliar voice on the line says, “Hello Mr. or Mrs. So-and-so, we're conducting a survey on…” You're thinking, “Not again,” and end the conversation - click.
As an alternative, rather than using standard telephone surveying, the manager of the company uses a resource I often recommend to my clients -business students. Picture yourself again at home. The phone rings. When you answer, a youthful voice says, “Hi, I'm a business student at the local university. For my marketing class I'm doing a project where I'm conducting a survey on such and such.” You find yourself saying, “OK, kid, let's make this quick.” Response rates soar. Bonus - students work for the price of Kraft Dinner!
Mistake #5 - trust high ratings
On a customer survey, you can ask, “Overall, are you satisfied with the service?” And you may get results that show that 96% said, “Yes.” But be careful how you interpret those results. This is where many managers assume that they're getting an A+ score. Think of the question again; it asks if overall you are 'satisfied.' In other words, the survey is asking if the service is adequate. By responding 'yes,' customers are not saying that they were impressed or even pleased-merely that they were satisfied. It doesn't mean they feel loyal. Imagine your sweetheart talking to a friend and describing you as being adequate. You'd probably see that as reason for concern! It certainly isn't reason to think you're getting an A+ performance rating. Yet, that's exactly what so many managers think when they see a 96% customer-satisfaction rating.
The lesson is that managers need to stop interpreting high percentages the way we did in high school. If you have a 98% customer-satisfaction rating you may still have serious problems in customer loyalty. According to marketing research expert, Dr. Mike Heffring, “It has been shown that it's the percentage of people who give you excellent or outstanding ratings (e.g., nine or ten on a ten-point scale) who matter. If you increase that percentage, then market share actually moves. If you don't, then you may feel better if the percent satisfied goes up but the impact is insignificant.”
Identify what customers really think
In other words, when it comes to planning your corporate strategy, the focus becomes, What do managers need to do to shift customers from being 'satisfied' to being 'delighted'? Just make sure as you do this, that you also ask yourself if your current information is telling you what your customers really think.
|
| |
|
|
Sam Miller |
2007-07-12 |
|
|
|
Title: Measure Customer Service Performance: How To Treat A Customer Like A Customer
|
|
There are many measurements and choices of what to measure in order to decide whether an adequate guarantee of customer service is being met. However, it is unfortunate that many businesses select the wrong factors to measure or the select the correct elements to measure but make some logic leaps which means the collected data is false or misleading. A frequent error is to make the assumption that any two or more metrics can separated from the others. As an example, a business call center may measure an employee's performance level by setting maximum average times to complete a customer call. On the corporate level, management may count the number of calls handled during a specific time period and assume that more calls answered means better service. In fact, a large number of calls handled may reflect poor service quality rather than great service. If the service is so poor that customers don't want to deal with the call center--which unfortunately happens fairly frequently. By the same token, spending longer on each call doesn't mean that the customer is receiving better service. The number of calls has been used as another measure of satisfaction. While fewer calls may mean that fewer customers have complaints about the product or service, it may also mean that the wait times were so extraordinarily long that people simply gave up and hung up the phone. So, it's important to use enough indicators to make sure you are getting metrics which are measuring different aspects of customer service quality. Another common error which companies make is to use metrics which are easy to track, but that mean little to the satisfaction of the customer. An example would be the amount of non-customer time which the employee spends making notes or acting of the information which the customer has given. In addition to measure things which are not contributing to customer satisfaction, by choosing the wrong call center performance metrics, the call center management may present a false picture to the employees about what is and is not important to promote customer satisfaction. If the pressure on the employees is only about increasing the number of calls which they can handle during any one period of time, the employee may feel pressured to do almost anything just to get the customer off the line quickly. When a company is assessing the quality of the customer service which it provides, it's important to first choose enough metrics, so that both scope and number is measured. Second the measurements chosen should rate the things which are important from the customer's point of view. Employees should also understand what is the important factors which they are being rated for their own performance. The employee must always have a clear picture of what is and what is not meant by the term 'quality of customer service.'
|
| |
|
|
Sam Miller |
2007-11-01 |
|
|
|
Title: Customer Service KPIs Help Improve The Overall Performance
|
|
Customer service is the most important factor of any organization. This is what will speak about the overall look of the company. Only when the goals are mentioned with the good definitions, good steps can be taken to progress towards them. Measurements however should be taken in the right direction, and these measurements are the KPIs.
Most of the time, one of the main key performance indicators taken into consideration with the customer service organizations, is the number of calls that answered during the first minute. No matter what the indicators are, all of them should help with the goals of the company. They should not only be considered for a long time, they should be measurable as well.
Goals could change, and it could also help achieve great heights for the company. This would be done only with the right KPIs related to customer service. Important metrics need to be tracked, as only then the problems can be sorted easily. When it comes to customer service KPIs, it is a good idea to look at the ways that the service is being offered.
The first thing that should be taken into consideration is the average cost that would happen with each option of service being used. It could be via call centers, email or some other services. A lot of companies will move the customer service options to those that are less expensive. Every year all the definitions of the KPIs should stay consistent.
Using the KPIs related to the customer service, the company should be able to make a lot of profits. If there are any KPIs which talk about repeating same customers, it will not be worth it. The idea is to serve new customers as well, and to get a great deal of benefits out of it. The indicators from the KPIs should definitely be quantifiable.
If the customer service is improved based on the KPIs, there is sure to be an increase in revenue, and there will be new sales. The staff which provides the customer service must be evaluated, and they must be taken into consideration. The overall level of their performance is very important to look at.
The outcome as well as process for improvement must be looked at closely after the results of the indicators are taken into consideration. Even with customer service, great focus must be there on the areas so that the company can excel. By looking at this, there could be a great chance to make the face of the company better.
Though products and services should be served according to what they need, they should be of proper quality. The company should also have a good knowledge of customers, and the environment should be pleasing. There should be great expertise with the product, and the responsiveness should also be good.
Being customer focused will be the highlight for any company, and if the indicators are right then it would be all set to give the company revenue in great amounts.
|
| |
|
|
Sam Miller |
2007-07-11 |
|
|
|
Title: Measure Customer Service Performance: How To Treat A Customer Like A Customer
|
|
There are many measurements and choices of what to measure in order to decide whether an adequate guarantee of customer service is being met. However, it is unfortunate that many businesses select the wrong factors to measure or the select the correct elements to measure but make some logic leaps which means the collected data is false or misleading.
A frequent error is to make the assumption that any two or more metrics can separated from the others. As an example, a business call center may measure an employee's performance level by setting maximum average times to complete a customer call. On the corporate level, management may count the number of calls handled during a specific time period and assume that more calls answered means better service.
In fact, a large number of calls handled may reflect poor service quality rather than great service. If the service is so poor that customers don't want to deal with the call center--which unfortunately happens fairly frequently. By the same token, spending longer on each call doesn't mean that the customer is receiving better service. The number of calls has been used as another measure of satisfaction. While fewer calls may mean that fewer customers have complaints about the product or service, it may also mean that the wait times were so extraordinarily long that people simply gave up and hung up the phone.
So, it's important to use enough indicators to make sure you are getting metrics which are measuring different aspects of customer service quality. Another common error which companies make is to use metrics which are easy to track, but that mean little to the satisfaction of the customer. An example would be the amount of non-customer time which the employee spends making notes or acting of the information which the customer has given.
In addition to measure things which are not contributing to customer satisfaction, by choosing the wrong call center performance metrics, the call center management may present a false picture to the employees about what is and is not important to promote customer satisfaction. If the pressure on the employees is only about increasing the number of calls which they can handle during any one period of time, the employee may feel pressured to do almost anything just to get the customer off the line quickly.
When a company is assessing the quality of the customer service which it provides, it's important to first choose enough metrics, so that both scope and number is measured. Second the measurements chosen should rate the things which are important from the customer's point of view. Employees should also understand what is the important factors which they are being rated for their own performance. The employee must always have a clear picture of what is and what is not meant by the term 'quality of customer service.'
|
|
|
| |
| |
|
Leave Comment |
|
|
|
| |
| |
|
|
|
