Lifestyle: Business - 3 Assumptions about Bad Customer Service Management… and Why They Are WRONG

There are some businesses who know that their customer service is already in trouble. While identifying that you have a problem is good, the steps you take afterwards to resolve it matter even more. A bad practice that some businessmen and managers do is that they make assumptions as to why their customer service isn’t great and act on those assumptions without validation on whether or not they held ground. In this article, I’ll be talking about the 3 common assumptions and why they are most likely false.

Assumption #1: My staff does not have enough product knowledge

Of course product knowledge is important but more often than not, the problem lies more with the staff’s selling skills. They lack the confidence and the proper training to be able to communicate the benefit of what they are selling. The good news is that it’s usually a case of just letting them translate their learnings from their training into something they can believe in, communicate, and sell.

Assumption #2: I’m not enforcing my customer service standards strictly enough

The answer to problems in customer servicing isn’t always solved by tightening your grip around your people. One of the key learnings in Customer Service Management is “show your people you care and they will be able to show care to their customer.”  Enforcing your customer servicing standards is something that must be done but you must never forget that you must also reinforce positive behaviors and that your employees are reasonably satisfied. A miserable employee has very little drive to give good customer service.

Assumption #3: I don’t have good employees (hence I need to find better ones)

This point is more targeted to those who usually get contractual workers. The typical practice is that contractual workers aren’t trained as much because they aren’t really “permanent assets” of the company. You must remember that whoever is the person interfacing with the customer serves as a FULL representative of your brand. The customer will not care whether or not he/she is just a contractual worker. Given this, you must make sure that these representatives are given the proper training. It is only then that the employee can show you whether they are capable of meeting your customer service standards. Recognize that it’s difficult for the employee to just be thrown into the water without being given the proper guidelines while you wait and see whether he/she sinks or swims.

Proper Customer Service Management Starts with Proper Problem Identification

Always be sure that you have identified the proper causes before taking action. Just like the above examples, if you act on the wrong assumptions, you may end up wasting your efforts or, even worse, further damaging your customer service. Double check your facts and be sure to do some insighting for this. I would still recommend getting a CEM company for a more accurate read on what’s going on and to be able to improve effectively and efficiently. Start things right because it always pays off to know that you’re heading off on the right direction with the right approach.