Tài liệu awinningcustomerservicestrategy ppt

A Winning Customer Service Strategy Providing high-quality customer service in the help desk requires much more than just technical troubleshooting skills. Employees must have excellent listening and communication skills, telephone skills, writing skills and they must be able to solve and prevent problems in the help desk. In addition, the ability to handle difficult customers and minimize stress during the workday also increases the level of customer service they provide. These "soft" skills are often more important in ensuring a high level of customer satisfaction than an employee's technical knowledge. Release Date: December 8, 2002 Page 2 of 9 Providing high-quality customer service in the help desk requires much more than just technical troubleshooting skills. Employees must have excellent listening and communication skills, telephone skills, writing skills and they must be able to solve and prevent problems in the help desk. In addition, the ability to handle difficult customers and minimize stress during the workday also increases the level of customer service they provide. These "soft" skills are often more important in ensuring a high level of customer satisfaction than an employee's technical knowledge. Link Satisfaction to Training In order to improve customer satisfaction within the support environment, a customer service strategy should be in place to solicit feedback from customers. Do they enjoy their support experience? What do they think about the level of service? What do they say when they complain about the service? The answers to those questions and data from the problem management system should then be used to develop a training program to improve the skill level of the help desk employees. Combine the customer service strategy with a solid employee hiring process that recruits new employees with the necessary skills and it will result in an increase in customer satisfaction. It is important to understand the link between customer satisfaction and the skills of the help desk employees. Step 1: Develop a Customer Service Strategy A winning customer service strategy provides quality service and resolves customer complaints. In the help desk industry, much effort has been placed on customer satisfaction measurement. This includes developing processes to measure satisfaction, implement changes to increase customer satisfaction and communicate the enhancements to the customers. A critical element that is missing is an emphasis on customer complaints. A support organization should also Page 3 of 9 develop processes for the management of complaints. A winning customer service strategy includes six steps: SOLICIT – Solicit customer complaints and feedback. RESOLVE – Resolve customer complaints on first contact. TRACK – Track, trend and proactively eliminate customer complaints using the problem management system. SURVEY – Survey customers on a regular basis. TRAIN – Train employees, based upon complaints, survey results and performance metrics, to increase quality of customer service and improve complaint resolution. MARKET – Market the winning customer service strategy to help desk employees and customers to establish expectation. W I N N I N G W I N N I N G W I N N I N G C U S T O M E R C U S T O M E R C U S T O M E R S E R V I C E S E R V I C E S E R V I C E S T R A T E G Y S T R A T E G Y S T R A T E G Y SOLICIT RESOLVE TRACK SURVEY TRAIN MARKET Page 4 of 9 Why Focus on Complaints? According to the 1996 report, Serving the American People: Best Practices in Resolving Customer Complaints published by the National Performance Review, there are five reasons why successful companies succeed at resolving customer complaints and thus increase customer satisfaction and loyalty. A best practice environment must: ♦ Make it easy for customers to complain and customers will make it easy for you to improve. ♦ Respond to complaints quickly and courteously with common sense and you will improve customer loyalty. ♦ Resolve complaints on the first contact and save money by eliminating unnecessary additional contacts that escalate costs and build customer confidence. ♦ Technology is critical in complaint handling systems. ♦ Recruit and hire the best for customer service jobs. Customer satisfaction is more than just solving a customer's technology problem or fulfilling a request as quickly as possible. It is also about how you handle "poor" service. You can't expect every call to be handled perfectly every time. Some customers get mad and get vocal. This often leads to the bad reputation of the help desk. So even when you provide "bad" service, develop a clear strategy for how to make it right - quickly and prevent similar problems in the future. Step 2: Hire Only the Best Quality service comes from quality employees. Develop a solid new hire process that recruits only those employees who have the necessary skills. The new hire process has four steps: RECRUIT – Recruit for technical resolution, listening and Page 5 of 9 communication, telephone, writing and customer service skills. HIRE – Hire only those employees who possess a complete skill set. TRAIN – Train employees regularly to invest in their success, increase employee retention and increase customer satisfaction. PROMOTE – Promote and retain only those employees who make the grade in your support organization. RECRUIT HIRE TRAIN PROMOTE W I N N I N G W I N N I N G W I N N I N G C U S T O M E R C U S T O M E R C U S T O M E R S E R V I C E S E R V I C E S E R V I C E S T R A T E G Y S T R A T E G Y S T R A T E G Y Page 6 of 9 Step 3: Invest in Your Employees In both the customer service strategy and the new hire process, there is an emphasis on training. A robust training program should address all the critical skills that are necessary to provide the best service to the customer. In the same report by the National Performance Review they state, "Best-in-Business leaders consider training an investment, not an expense. They use complaint trends/data to identify training needs." Organizations that spend a sizeable portion of their budgets on training can see a direct link between training and increases in customer satisfaction and loyalty. According to the American Productivity & Quality Center in their report titled Best Practices in New Customer Service, "The foundation of any successful customer service organization is the empowered customer service agent. Management in the best-practice organizations recognizes that external customer satisfaction requires granting power to those internal company representatives who serve as the critical link between the company and the customer." eService Consulting Practice Can Help Our eService Practice consultants can assist support organizations in creating a winning customer service strategy with our Customer Communication Plan, Customer Satisfaction Plan, Customer Marketing Plan and Customer Service Training. Communication Plan – This deliverable helps to establish communication standards in all written and verbal Page 7 of 9 communications as well as defines the process for how to communicate effectively with the customer. Customer Satisfaction Plan – This deliverable develops a customer satisfaction measurement process, assists with tool selection and provides sample surveys. Marketing Plan – This deliverable is a help desk marketing strategy to inform customers of the help desk services, help change the perception of the help desk and establish customer expectations. Customer Service Training – This class is designed to train help desk staff on how to improve customer communication skills, develop effective listening skills and develop strategies for dealing with difficult customers. CUSTOMER SATISFACTION PLAN MARKETING PLAN CUSTOMER SERVICE TRAINING COMMUNICATION PLAN W I N N I N G W I N N I N G W I N N I N G C U S T O M E R C U S T O M E R C U S T O M E R S E R V I C E S E R V I C E S E R V I C E S T R A T E G Y S T R A T E G Y S T R A T E G Y Page 8 of 9 Our consulting practice can help your customers to achieve higher levels of customer satisfaction and at the same time help to increase employee retention. According to Gartner Group, "Organizations must begin to evaluate customer service as a competitive weapon and make appropriate investments in infrastructure, cultures, people and processes." Page 9 of 9 About the Author Julie Mohr is a Managing Consultant for Alternative Resources Corporation based near Sacramento, California. She has 14 years of experience in the IT industry with 8 years of progressive management responsibility in information technology services. Ms. Mohr has a degree in Computer Science from the Ohio State University and is pursuing an MBA in Technology Management. She is a Certified Help Desk Director from Help Desk 2000. Ms. Mohr has published over 130 articles on computers, technology, education and training. She has served as a speaker on help desk enhancement topics at Support Services Conferences, HDI Conferences and local HDI chapter meetings over the past four years. If your organization needs to improve customer service, ARC can help. We would be happy to meet with you to provide you with more detail about our Customer Service Training class. To arrange a meeting, please call our Marketing Department at (847) 620-4165.