The Three Faces of Customer Service

Many small business owners (not to mention the big businesses…) think of Customer Service as a discrete, sometimes separate activity that goes on at the call center or on the sales floor. If necessary, it might carry over to the “complaint” department, now renamed, “Customer Service.” 

That view both oversimplifies and “undercomplicates” a more accurate description of an enterprise-wide perspective on the Customer-focused design of a consistently remarkable Customer Experience.

 Think of overall Customer Service involving three areas: Before the Customer engages with the Company, during and after the shopping/purchase engagement, and if needed a “service failure recovery” effort. 

First, what you might call Expectations Management. This includes messages and other communications from the service provider that inform the Client/Customer what to expect. Obviously you want to avoid over-promising / under-delivering. (This is “Gap 4” in the Conceptual Model of Service Quality found in Delivering Quality Service (Zeithaml et al).

 Second is the “real-time” delivery of service — what's done (or not done) at the point(s) of contact(s) and after the sale in terms of follow-up, warranty claims and referrals. These can be evaluated and designed through a Cycle of Service and Moments of Truth (MOT) (touchpoints) analysis. Each MOT can be broken down into a) what the Customer expects; b) what might go wrong (consider a Failure Mode & Effects Analysis [FMEA] here), and c) our brand identity: what this contact should look like to reinforce our brand image.

 Third is contingency planning: What to do if something goes wrong – i.e., “service (failure) recovery.” Probably the best treatment I know of is Knock Your Socks Off Service Recovery by Zemke & Bell. If you haven't seen this one yet, get it!

 So what do Customers expect? Here are some interesting findings from a British Airways study:

 1. Care and Concern – Treat individuals as important people. (Listen to understand their needs, wants and concerns.)

2. Problem Solving – People should be skilled at working their job. (I would add that they should also have the tools, equipment and support they need to do it well at the first contact.)

3. Spontaneity – Are frontline people are authorized to think? When a problem arises that doesn’t fit the procedure book, can the service person use some discretion –– find a way to jockey the system on the Customer’s behalf? (We probably call this being Customer-centric today...)

4. Recovery – If something does go wrong, will someone go out of his / her way to make a special effort to set it right? Does anyone even know how to deliver a simple apology?

 In short, in the words of Pine & Gilmore (The Experience Economy), “Work is theatre and every business a stage.” I would add that Customer Service is the scripted performance art designed in advance to delight and amaze the audience (Customer) with the intended outcome that they 1) rave about the performance and 2) encourage or insist that others come to the show!

 //Richard