Great Customer Service: The Framework
Why customer service is important
When was the last time you were amazed by the customer service you received? You can most likely remember it. Great customer experiences are quite rare, so we tend to remember them. Although things are slowly changing and more companies are making a bigger effort in excelling at it, the truth is that there’s still a lot to improve for most of them. Only in the US, $62 billion is lost because of bad customer service every year.
Traditionally companies adopted a business-centric approach, doing different analysis like Porter’s Five Forces or the SWOT analysis where business is at the core and everything else is around it. However, more recently some companies have been steering away from that approach towards a customer-centric approach where the customer is at the core and the business is built around it to satisfy customer needs. Because in this approach the customer is the most important thing, customer service is a key piece and it has become one of the main priorities for these companies.
A very important metric for companies is Customer Lifetime Value (LTV). We’re in a fierce environment where companies are constantly fighting against each other to get new customers. Competition is getting every time tougher and tougher, and retaining customers is a very key aspect for any business to be successful. Offering an outstanding customer service can be not only a key differentiator but it will also make your retention increase, thus increasing your LTV and your revenue.
Good vs Great
Good is the enemy of great. You’ve probably heard this before, but it’s true and it applies also here. Lots of companies think that having a good customer service is enough. They think that having untrained people dealing with customer problems is fine as long as customers don’t get very upset with the service offered. If you have a customer-centric company and you take your customers seriously, you should do more than just that. Being just good is not enough, you need to run the extra mile.
Being just good is not enough, you need to run the extra mile.
Having a good customer service will make your customers be satisfied in the best of the cases, but it won’t make them love your company. In the worst case scenario, good will not be good enough and your company and your brand will suffer. Even if your customer service is better than your competitors’, it doesn’t prevent a new player from coming in and doing it even better.
Providing great customer service goes a step beyond that. It’s all about being obsessed with delivering value to your customers, even more than what they expect. That will make you be ahead of your competitors and maximise the LTV of your customers by increasing retention and satisfaction.
The framework
After analysing different cases of good customer service and great customer service, I made a list of common patterns that could be observed among the latter ones. They basically boil down to three principles:
1. Be always positive 👍
When we do customer service for the first time we think it’s all about saying how sorry we are about the incident and we try to empathise with the customer. When we do that, we don’t only transmit our inability to solve problems, but we also show weakness and incompetence. Many good customer service emails start with: “We apologise…”, “I’m so sorry about…” or my favourite one: “Unfortunately….”. That’s a big mistake. When you do that, you are not focusing on actually delivering value to the customer, but rather finding an excuse to not deliver it. Even worse, sometimes they ask for an apology multiple times which is seen by the customer as a sign of incompetence and weakness.
When we provide great customer service, we transmit our willingness to solve problems and deliver value to the user.
Instead, the great customer service framework tries to transform that into a positive message. When we do that, we transmit our willingness to solve problems and deliver value to the user. For example, instead of saying “We apologise for the problems you are having” you could say “I see you are having some issue, but don’t worry. I’ll help you to get this sorted out”. This completely changes the perception of the customer and it gives the feeling that someone’s got your back and it’s going to help you.
2. Solve problems 🙏
When a customer has a question or a problem, they contact customer support looking for an answer or a solution. Your mission is to solve their problem and provide that solution. In some cases, you can even provide multiple solutions and let the customer decide what they want to do. Now that might sound obvious but, in some cases, it can be tricky. If the problem is difficult to solve you might need to make an extra effort to get their problem sorted out. In some companies, employees must solve their customers’ problems even if they are not related to their company at all.
Attitude is a huge factor when dealing with customers’ problems. You need a very strong willingness to do whatever it takes to help and provide value. If the problem has no solution, compensate your customers in some way so they won’t feel helpless.
3. Exceed expectations 😲
Making the difference in customer service means also exceeding expectations. When you offer customer support you should ask yourself: “what would I expect as a customer?”. Then take that answer and level it up to provide a truly amazing experience. To do that you should ask yourself: “what would really impress me as a customer?”. Sometimes this might be just a small detail of a personal note, a small gift or a discount coupon. A good example is Zappos’ “flower stats”.
Ask yourself: “what would really impress me as a customer?”.
By exceeding expectations, you’ll make your customers remember you and you’ll provide the best experience they can get from your customer support.
Customer service means loving your customers
Astounding customer service involves a mindset change of the whole company. You need to change the way you see your customers and get obsessed with offering value to them. That’s why some companies have a “Customer Love team” rather than a customer support team. It’s not just about filling a need, it’s about giving as much value as you can to your users.
It’s not just about filling a need, it’s about giving as much value as you can to your users.
The framework explained in this article can be used as a guideline to start shifting your customer service towards this direction, and it provides a checklist with 3 points you should check every time you communicate with a customer.
PS: Thank you for reading! If you want to know more about me go to: xavimagrinya.com
