Service: Another View

A new book says businesses can best increase satisfaction, build loyalty and control costs by liberating customers from customer service

See if this shoe fits: You take pride in running a business where, when customers come to you with problems, you respond quickly. You answer the phone in no more than three rings. You reply promptly to e-mails. By every measure, you provide service that customers will remember favorably.

Is that how you operate? Well, if you accept the premise of a new book, you may be measuring the wrong things, and your service might not be as good as you think. Bill Price and David Jaffe have written The Best Service Is No Service: How to Liberate Your Customers from Customer Service, Keep Them Happy and Control Costs.

They would argue that customers need customer service only when your company has done something wrong in the first place. And that eliminating the need for service is the best way to satisfy customers.

Getting it right

Maybe deep down you knew that already. After all, it seems obvious. But one argument the authors make is that many companies concentrate on meeting the demand for customer service instead of working to reduce that demand.

“Fortunately, not all companies have slavishly hewn to the cope-with-demand rut,” the authors write. “Some have begun to scratch their heads to ask, ‘Isn’t there a better way to help our customers?’”

The Price/Jaffe book is aimed mainly at executives and managers in large companies, but as always, some of what they say applies to smaller businesses as well. The book spells out seven principles that, if followed, can move a company from basic service to best service.

They spend the first chapter on the concept of eliminating “dump contacts” – occasions when a customer has to contact your business because of an underlying mistake, defect or confusion that you should instead address and remove.

Example: “(T)he average satellite TV provider gets three or four customer contacts to activate the service and make sure it is working, and often more during the first year due to outages, error messages on the TV screen, service upgrades, or broken set-top boxes that need to be replaced . . .

“The company might spend $50 to acquire a new customer, or subscriber, but then spend another $100 or more to support him – instead of building easier instructions into the product or reducing defects in the set-top boxes.”

Ear to the ground

Some of their best and most applicable advice comes toward the end. The next-to-last chapter, titled, “Listen and Act,” discusses the importance of listening to customers and responding affirmatively to what they say.

The authors argue that many companies spend vast sums of money trying to determine who their customers are, what they really want from the company, and how happy they are with the relationship. At the same time, they forget to listen to, record, and act on things customers tell them in everyday interactions. Price/Jaffe observe that companies with excellent service have:

• Figured out that each contact is a chance to listen, and each complaint is a gift.

• Trained their staffs to listen and not just process.

• Given staff members time, systems and processes to help them listen.

• Developed ways to capture what customers are saying.

• Created continuous feedback mechanisms.

One example of a good listener is the Trader Joe’s chain of upscale grocery stores, which was named a Leading Listener Winner by Fast Company magazine. “In response to customers’ requests or inquiries, the company has introduced allergy labels before they were federally required, has stocked products quickly after they are mentioned, and has provided considerable autonomy to store managers to stock to suit local needs,” the book states.

Price/Jaffe note that listening is not the end of the story. “The whole purpose of listening … is to take action and drive improvement for the customer and the company. Many companies are stuck today in a cycle of measurement that doesn’t drive action.”

How well do your people listen to customers every day? Do comments and complaints make it quickly to management or ownership so that you can act on them? Or do the things your phone personnel hear simply end with them?

Making it count

No matter how well your company performs, you are certain to have contacts with customers – and when you do, Price/Jaffe observe, you need to handle them properly. They mention in particular five tests of the service measurements you are undertaking to make sure all elements of great service fall into place.

1. Strategic alignment test. Can you link all your measures back to the organizational strategy? If not, why are they there?

2. Wasted effort test. Are you collecting and reporting data that you are not using to drive action? Why keep score, then fail to act?

3. Customer impact test. Are you measuring things that are key for the customer? If not, how do you know how to improve the experience?

4. Control test. Do the people whose performance you are measuring have the power or ability to influence their results? If not, the process probably demotivates them.

5. Action test. Do you have processes in place to act on the measures you are obtaining? If not, why bother?

Best for last?

The authors saved one of their better nuggets of wisdom for the book’s appendix. Price describes what he calls the Golden Thirty Seconds. Those are the seconds at the very start of a call when the customer is ready to describe her frustrations or insights.

Too often, the service person on the phone – trained to move quickly to problem resolution – disregards or glosses over this part of the call, or even interrupts and redirects the customer. Price/Jaffe advocate listening very closely to the opening of the call “and benefiting from what the customer is willing to share.”

Advice you glean from The Best Service Is No Service can help you build and keep a large base of people loyal to your business – the key to prosperity and competitive advantage in any line of work.



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