Call Center Management Featured Article
MENA Region Struggles with Putting Emphasis on Customer Experience
While U.S. and European countries struggle to perfect the customer experience – “struggle” is a good word because, despite efforts, few are succeeding 100 percent – other regions are further behind. They may not yet recognize the importance of putting the customer experience ahead of all other considerations, or it may not be part of the culture to treat “customer as king.”
In a recent article for Wamda, Johnny Matt writes that an inadequate or non-existent focus on customer satisfaction in some countries of the MENA region has practically become part of the culture, and few organizations, from business-to-business to business-to-consumer, online businesses or brick-and-mortar stores, are even making the effort. Customers are repeatedly frustrated by rude agents, poor returns or refund policies, slow response times and hidden fees. In many cases, business owners and managers may believe that providing good customer support costs too much, but the truth is that bad customer support is what costs too much.
“The need to provide proper customer service is not altruistic: customer satisfaction increases loyalty, expands the customer base, and decreases acquisition costs, with a final positive impact on the bottom-line,” wrote Matta. “For instance, a five percent increase in loyalty has been shown to escalate profits by up to 100 percent. In short, poor service equates with poor profits. And perhaps what is more interesting is that proper customer service actually pays for itself.”
Too many companies in the region, according to Matta, focus on each customer interaction, and the ultimate goal is to make a sale during the interaction. Less focus is put on pleasing the customer (regardless of whether a sale is being made). The result is a string of one-time sales to customers who never return, because they were dissatisfied with a product, or the interaction was unpleasant enough that they vow never to do business with the company again.
It’s about more than lost sales, though. Poor customer experiences can reverberate throughout the organization and cost money in unexpected places…for starters, in high turnover in customer-facing employees.
“Bad customer service can introduce costs that are not sales-related,” Matta emphasized. “One example is employee retention, since staff that has to deal with angry customers while not being empowered to satisfy them, often builds up frustration and dissatisfaction, with the final possibility of quitting their job, causing the costly need to recruit and train replacements. Furthermore, training employees to provide quality customer service is likely easier than preparing them to deal with dissatisfied individuals.”
Agents will take their cues from management and company executives. Many businesses in the region are famous for their high-quality customer support, notably some Middle Eastern airlines. Employees are rigorously trained to offer high quality experiences to all customers each time they reach out to a company, and management provides them with the tools to accomplish it. Companies operating in the region should be sure that agents and other customer-facing employees are empowered to go above and beyond for the customer, and understand that this attitude is what’s expected of them.
The benefits may not be immediately measurable – companies or managers operating with short-term goals in mind may find it frustrating to not be able to attach an immediate price tag (News - Alert) to each transaction – but the long-term gains are worth it.
“McKinsey estimates 70 percent of buying experiences are based on how the customer feels they are being treated,” wrote Matta. “Treating customers with dignity starts with what a customer sees, going through the way she is engaged, all the way to the end result that customer receives.”
Edited by Stefania Viscusi