Do you know of a customer service department or office that deviates from this generic name? In my country, a few, very few companies have been using names such as customer contact or customer support. Not bad, but to date I am not aware of any company that has renamed this crucial work as an office or customer satisfaction department.
It is likely that many managers consider that the conventional name is enough, that it is not necessary to decorate or innovate in an already explicit and finished concept. Could it be true? I think no. Moving from the concept of care to that of customer satisfaction has a much greater scope than that of presenting the customer with an attractive semantic twist. It represents, above all, a declaration of excellence and high commitment, a total reconfiguration (reengineering) of service management. Let's see why:
1. Good care is the least you can expect:
Many companies consider good customer service to be the point of arrival, but it turns out to be the opposite: it is the starting point. Good service management cannot be rated with a degree of excellence just because a call is answered quickly or because it receives a cordial and timely treatment.
2. Satisfaction equals solution:
If speed and friendliness are the beginning, what comes next? Well, from this point on, the innovative leap begins: clients expect that after the formalities of care come a whole effort to demonstrate that the consultant and his company are prepared to meet, and even exceed, the expectations of the clients.
3. Receivers or managers ?:
If the customer took the initiative and took action, the company and its service personnel should do the same. The role of courteous and patient recipients that customer care staff does or should have flatters, but doesn't satisfy. Cases in which clients must insist again and again and again in the search for a solution are common, and if the consultant is not the same as the one who first attended the case in question, the process generally tends to return to the starting point. It is also not uncommon to find that each advisor provides an incomplete or inconsistent answer regarding the first, second or third advisor who took note (did they actually take note?) Of the case, which would leave the company and its management care poorly. and customer satisfaction.A client in the process of being treated with complete satisfaction should not report more than once what the reason for their contact is. If the company has a high level of performance in service management, it should take the corresponding initiatives, become an actor, not a receiver.
4. Training for satisfaction:
Advisors should be well trained to demonstrate, not to show the client, that they are willing to do their part to take action and find the best solution. It is essential that they convey to the client the feeling that "there is someone who took care of the matter", someone capable of asking pertinent questions, of paving the way for them. Every client expects something to happen, something positive, something tangible, measurable. The best image that a service consultant can project and, by extension, his own company, is to demonstrate to the client that he or someone else, with his own name, will accompany him to the point of arrival, that is, to full satisfaction.
5. The cost of full satisfaction:
In closing, managers and directors are very likely wondering if that arrival point is not a difficult commitment to fulfill: full satisfaction to all customers? Yes, there is no doubt that this endeavor can be intimidating and, moreover, costly. There will be cases in which, for one reason or another, the client will never be completely satisfied. However, excluding these marginal situations, managing customer satisfaction deserves careful reflection and a rethinking of what it actually means to retain that customer. By constantly examining the critical points of service management, by improving the loyalty mechanisms month by month and year after year, managers will find that managing towards full satisfaction is less complex than it seems.Is this a high cost? No way. It is a hallmark, a high impact added value and a very smart investment.
