MANAGED SERVICES customer ser vices


place overseas (ie, following the coup in XX, we’re advising customers not to travel to this country, for more information contact…); but if a customer rings up and wants advice on what attractions to visit when holidaying in Rome, then this needs a more personal approach, where the call handler has to understand the customer (no point in recommending the art galleries if the customer hates art) and use his or her personality and expertise to give the customer a good experience.


In other words there are simple transactions, and then there are conversations. Customer facing employees need training to understand the difference, but the point was made that customer service success starts


the impact of their requirements on other priorities?


A more flexible process, allowing for different levels of customer service, would address such an issue. Call prioritisation – understanding the customer and the level of urgency – a triage system if you like – is a good way to address this situation. Anyone who has had to deal with a customer service department will readily recognise the difference between a call handler who is doing the very minimum to help, and someone who actually seems to be enjoying the challenge of resolving a complaint.


In the case of IT, there was also recognition that most people are employed for their


feedback can be good in helping to identify areas for improvement – but does this correlate to customer satisfaction?


As one participant explained, no one rings up and says thank you to the IT department because their system is working! However, when the department coordinated a Windows 7 roll out, they did follow up with a survey of how effective the department was in communicating and implementing the roll out. Some employees had issues with the communications side, and these were followed up – an important point when it comes to negative feedback. Measuring customer satisfaction after a transaction is one thing, but how does one convey brand reliability and trust beforehand?


However, processes are there for a reason, and need to be respected


by all. An example was cited where, whenever senior stakeholders needed IT support, they received it immediately, effectively bypassing the process. While great customer service for them, was there an understanding of the impact of their requirements on other priorities?


with the recruitment process. Employees that have a real skill for dealing with customers are, it seems, born, not made!


One participant outlined how, in the case of the IT department, which can often seem remote from the customer (whether internal or external), there was a structure in place to ensure that the IT personnel visited external customers and some of their work colleagues, to understand just how much of an impact the IT department could have on its customers. While all of the roundtable participants recognised the need to put processes in place, all were equally agreed that there can be no single process, or combination of processes to cover all customer service issues. Sometimes, the individual providing customer service has to be left to deal with a situation according to their judgement.


However, processes are there for a reason, and need to be respected by all. An example was cited where, whenever senior stakeholders needed IT support, they received it immediately, effectively bypassing the process. While great customer service for them, was there an understanding of


technical skills and not their customer service skills. Back to process – managing who deals with which customers and how this can help overcome such a potential problem.


Measuring customer satisfaction


The discussion moved on to measurement. How does one measure customer satisfaction? There are many different ways that are used – response time, call wait time, surveys to name but three – but are any a true reflection of customer satisfaction?


One of the participants outlined how the organisation ran user experience days to carry out in-depth customer feedback for the business; another explained how the number of customers opting into the organisation’s email newsletter was used as a measure of customer satisfaction; and another that repeat bookings was used as a good indicator. However, the major stumbling block with much, if not all, of the above seems to be that, in general, happy customers don’t say anything, but unhappy people do. That said, there was acknowledgement that complaints are interesting and that negative


Another participant outlined the success of the well-understood maxim that it is easier to keep existing customers than to find new ones. In the case of their data centre business, 70 percent of all new revenue came from existing customers, with a further 20 percent based on recommendations from existing customers.


Best practices Participants were all agreed that customer best practice was something that had to be continually worked on. In one example, the participant’s main website had recently been re-launched as ‘fully responsive’ – a single website, but providing a different look and feel for different devices, recognising that someone visiting the site via a phone would have different needs from someone accessing it via an iPad or PC. In the case of the phone it would likely be, I need my tickets now; with the tablet, it would be more of a browsing experience.


All participants agreed that the ITIL standard offered best practice for service management, and PRINCE2 the same for project management, but bemoaned the lack of a comparable customer service


Summer 2014 I www.dcseurope.info 25


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