The Customer Service Survey
Selling the Problem a Solution to the Problem
Fri - July 7, 2006 01:51 PM in
On the chance it isn't glaringly obvious, my responsibility at VocaLabs is the marketing and sales of our service of measuring the quality of customer care from the perspective of the caller. While we have had notable success in some quarters, the resistance we encounter selling directly to contact center management is a continuing frustration; and in a wide ranging conversation we had last week with a major public relations company, the reason for our frustration was addressed with all the subtlety of being hit upside the head with a 2X4.
A senior executive of this PR firm was plain spoken in saying VocaLabs is mis-directing our efforts by concentrating on contact center management and not the marketing arm of prospective clients. His point was essentially that in focusing sales efforts on contact center management we were approaching the source of the problem in order to solve the problem.
While that is a harsh view coming obviously from a marketing oriented perspective, and we regularly hear contact center management complaining about marketing not keeping customer care managers in the loop; in the final analysis that PR executive was making a very valid point. In a follow up e-mail to me, that same PR executive said:
"I can tell you that the phenomenon is more than just anecdotal. We work with a LOT of marketing executives in our day-to-day lives, and "access to the customer" is always a point of pain--whether that access is guarded by sales, distribution or customer support. You will definitely touch a pain point if you address how the contact center gives access to customer insights that marketing isn't tapping fully."
One of the surprising statistics I encountered when first joining Vocalabs was a study that showed that a staggering 93% of callers into customer care say they form their opinions about a company based on the quality of service they receive. Not advertising, sales, or public relations, but customer service!
Yet I can't think of a single organization in which customer service reports directly to the head of marketing or sales. And that just doesn't make a lot of sense. Regardless, if any reader has experience or insights on selling customer service satisfaction testing while avoiding what might be seen as an end run around customer service management, I'd love to hear from you at rrappe@vocalabs.com Thanks.
Posted by Rick Rappe
While that is a harsh view coming obviously from a marketing oriented perspective, and we regularly hear contact center management complaining about marketing not keeping customer care managers in the loop; in the final analysis that PR executive was making a very valid point. In a follow up e-mail to me, that same PR executive said:
"I can tell you that the phenomenon is more than just anecdotal. We work with a LOT of marketing executives in our day-to-day lives, and "access to the customer" is always a point of pain--whether that access is guarded by sales, distribution or customer support. You will definitely touch a pain point if you address how the contact center gives access to customer insights that marketing isn't tapping fully."
One of the surprising statistics I encountered when first joining Vocalabs was a study that showed that a staggering 93% of callers into customer care say they form their opinions about a company based on the quality of service they receive. Not advertising, sales, or public relations, but customer service!
Yet I can't think of a single organization in which customer service reports directly to the head of marketing or sales. And that just doesn't make a lot of sense. Regardless, if any reader has experience or insights on selling customer service satisfaction testing while avoiding what might be seen as an end run around customer service management, I'd love to hear from you at rrappe@vocalabs.com Thanks.
Posted by Rick Rappe
Posted at 01:51 PM | | | | |