The CX Blog

I love this first line, from a post in Fast Company entitled How Do You Scale Customer Service by Valerie Maltoni:

Mass personalization in customer care works only if your name is “mass”.

Ms. Maltoni goes on to discuss the impact of a shrinking economy and discretionary cash on most businesses out there: Service will be the great differentiator.  As it should be, in good times and bad.  Window dressing is nice, but if you really want your customers to remember you, be there for them when they really need you–it never, ever fails.

She then says some things that made me do a virtual high-five: YESSSSS!  So simple, this stuff is sooooo simple…but not as easy as you might think.  Hence the need to call in consultants who’ve been there and get it. Ms. Maltoni goes on:

3. Close the loop on communications. Everyone in your company should be cross trained in customer service. It should be a requirement that senior management spend time on the front lines every month, listening to customers, helping with issues, and energizing their teams. This part will be easy to scale if you have a whole team dedicated to it instead of just the people who have a customer service title.

1. Listen aggressively to the question or problem, then provide exceptionally good customer service. For example, if something is not working, find out what it is exactly, get a technician to look it up and provide a status report on when it will be fixed. Then confirm all of it with the customer.

2. Hire the best people, train them well, and support their decisions. Scale does not mean only large numbers. It also (and mostly) means effectiveness. For what are large numbers going to do if you fail miserably across the board? Each good decision takes you a step closer to a satisfied customer and happy customers tend to tell everyone about your company - we like to look good when we provide referrals.

And if you like these three points, take a peek at Best Service is No Service as well–lots of good “been there, done that” inside info like this, simple– not always easy–but always aimed at making Service (and all the operations behind that customer contact) a brand differentiating proposition.