Call Center Management Featured Article
Customer Service at its Best: Anticipating Problems
Customer service by and large exists for the main purpose of helping customers. While in some cases this help involves answering questions about a current product or product line, much of customer service involves taking care of customer issues after the sale. Most customer service is set up to handle problems as problems emerge, but what about a more proactive approach? Can customer service actually be set up to take care of at least some problems before those problems get big enough to prompt calls? The answer to that is a resounding yes, and here are some methods to make customer service act rather than react.
First, investing some time into the anticipation of issues is important. Call center managers should be actively looking for problems that can be addressed in the earliest stages. Not every problem can be spotted this way, of course, but any problem that can be addressed before it grows is a problem taken care of with much less effort and expense.
Next, instead of waiting for complaints to arrive, turn it around and contact the customers before the customers can contact customer service. This isn't always easy—customers often find problems before anyone else since the customers are the ones using the products or services—but when a problem is found, reaching out to customers about the problem offers significant advantages. It's often perceived well, too; the company cares enough about its customers to tell said customers that a problem has arisen, and what the customers can do in response. The more often the company can beat customers to the punch in terms of complains, the better off overall the company is.
This actually relates well to the next point: keep the customers informed. Heading off complaints is a great step, but it can go farther. Customers don't have much of a problem being contacted if the contact is relevant. Customers want to know when a business is offering discounts, or special offers, or making changes to valued products.
But that point—relevance--figures into the next point as well. Take the time to find out what the customers' biggest concerns are, and address customer service accordingly. Relevance is key to customers' tolerance of contact from companies, and providing relevant, timely information is valuable. Throwing all the information the company has at any given time, on the other hand, is not.
Finally, try to anticipate as much as possible. Talk to the call center agents for this one; said agents are most in the know. Build that frequently asked questions file and update it; the more questions that customers can answer unaided, the less customer service has to do in response, and the more that customer service can focus on active communication rather than fielding questions.
These are all fairly simple points, and though these points aren't universal—no business can possibly anticipate every customer problem ahead of schedule—focusing on heading off as many as possible will not only make the customer service department better, but it will also help the company's perception in the eyes of its customers. When the customer base thinks that the company is fast to respond to customer issues, and is even often seen ahead of the curve, the likelihood that that customer will come back increases substantially. Being proactive instead of reactive may be one of the great cliches of business, but there's no denying that it's got plenty of truth to it.
Edited by Stefania Viscusi