Customers Defect When the Silos Don’t Connect
We stumbled upon an older article from a CRM publication this week that makes some points that remain key problems for the customer service industry. Though the article was written in 2006, it’s shocking to realize how few businesses are focused on solving these issues and how few technology solutions have emerged with a focus on these kinds of problems.
After you read the article, give us a call, we believe Convergy’s Policy Management Suite is the perfect fit in businesses today where customers are getting mixed, contradictory, service prohibitory, messages…..
Here’s a great excerpt:
Stranger Than Fiction (This Stuff Really Happened)
An automotive company began to charge customers for loaner cars regardless of what car they had purchased, how old or new the vehicle was, or how many vehicles the customer had purchased. An insurance company cancelled a customer’s service for non-payment, and then solicited that customer the next day for a different product. A packaged goods company sent out empty boxes to customers who had purchased out-of-stock products and then sent the product later under separate cover. Each of these occurred as the outcome of separate silo objectives intersecting and falling in an awkward heap on customers’ laps.
This is the gift we give our customers every day. They receive the defaulted experiences that come together in a dimwitted chain of events that has the customer wondering “Do they talk to each other?” “What are they thinking?” and “Why do I have to take this anymore?”
**********************************
Five Ways to Keep Your Customers
What customers really want is simple, and that is for companies to keep their problems to themselves, and to provide a seamless experience to them when they call, contact, communicate, or go to buy something. To stop customers from running out your door, begin to do these things:
1. Eliminate the customer obstacle course. We deliver discontinuity in the experience where the organizational breaks exist. It is in these hand-offs that customer failures occur, in this customer Bermuda triangle that we’ve created. Simplify the road map for customers. Make it clear for them how they can do business with you in a way that’s actually beneficial to them.
2. Desilo your Web site. Our Web sites are often the cobbled together parts created separately by each company division. Figure out collectively how you will serve customers on your Web site and deliver an on-purpose brand experience.
3. FIX (really) the top-10 issues bugging customers. You can probably recite the biggest customer issues right now. Do something about them. Customers read the lack of action as lack of caring and certainly lack of respect. We all overthink what the customer effort should be. Start by striking these top-10 things from your corporate wide to-do list.
4. Help the front line to listen. It has been programmed to get a certain output. Sometimes this means closing the call within a time frame, and often it includes some kind of cross- or upsell goal. It may be to meet with a quota of customers in a certain time period. Let them be human, give them the skills for listening and understanding, and help the front line deliver to the customers based on their needs.
5. Deliver what you promise. The customers have to strong arm their way through the corporate maze just to get basic things accomplished. They’re exhausted from the wrestling match, they’re annoyed, and they’re telling everyone they know. And, oh by the way–when they get the chance, they’re walking.
You can read the full article here
Read More