The Customer Service Survey
VocaLabs' weblog providing news and commentary on the challenges of providing good customer service.
Why is it so complicated?
Friday - September 23, 2005 04:08 PM in
Peter and I are just back from a few days in Seattle where we staffed the VocaLabs booth at the Annual Call Center Exhibition (ACCE) trade show. We introduced Express Feedback, and received many favorable comments. We exhibit at several shows every year, and tend to run into the same faces, so it was refreshing to meet so many new folks this time.
Because we exhibit so frequently, and Peter quite often is a speaker, I loosely track the topics of the various presenters, and want to make a somewhat acerbic comment.
Namely, I have seen a bajillion articles, white papers and speeches comprising tens of thousands of words that can be compressed into just a single sentence:
To run a successful call center (defined as one that provides a high level of customer care/satisfaction), ask the customer what they want, and give it to them.
Why is that so hard to explain? Ok, I understand that if we made it easy, a bunch of consultants would have to find gainful employment, and more than a few call center managers would find it harder to justify a staff of people recording calls, monitoring agents and such andthere would be a slew of vendors of fancy tracking technology looking for work too.
Heck, I well remember my days in the Bell system with acronyms abounding to the point that I realized that if we spoke plainly instead of insider jargon, no one would pay us the salaries we were receiving.
Still, it boggles my mind how such a simple truth can get so lost. Here's a corollary to the above: Anything you do in your business--anything--that does not focus first on the customer will result in failure or at best, continued mediocrity.
This is a key reason why so many CRM projects have failed to live up to their promise. Despite rhetoric about serving the customer, the focus was more on better serving the company by manipulating the customer.
It was the wrong attitude when the first caveman traded a club for fire, and it will be true as long as there is a build-buy-sell economic structure running the world.
Posted by Rick Rappe
Namely, I have seen a bajillion articles, white papers and speeches comprising tens of thousands of words that can be compressed into just a single sentence:
To run a successful call center (defined as one that provides a high level of customer care/satisfaction), ask the customer what they want, and give it to them.
Why is that so hard to explain? Ok, I understand that if we made it easy, a bunch of consultants would have to find gainful employment, and more than a few call center managers would find it harder to justify a staff of people recording calls, monitoring agents and such andthere would be a slew of vendors of fancy tracking technology looking for work too.
Heck, I well remember my days in the Bell system with acronyms abounding to the point that I realized that if we spoke plainly instead of insider jargon, no one would pay us the salaries we were receiving.
Still, it boggles my mind how such a simple truth can get so lost. Here's a corollary to the above: Anything you do in your business--anything--that does not focus first on the customer will result in failure or at best, continued mediocrity.
This is a key reason why so many CRM projects have failed to live up to their promise. Despite rhetoric about serving the customer, the focus was more on better serving the company by manipulating the customer.
It was the wrong attitude when the first caveman traded a club for fire, and it will be true as long as there is a build-buy-sell economic structure running the world.
Posted by Rick Rappe
Posted at 04:08 PM by | | | |