Articles

Amazon's Customer Centricity Lessons: It is Not Your Fault, But He is Your Customer

Customer service is the victim of one of the biggest—and most unfortunate—misconceptions in the business world.

Contrary to common belief and practice, it is not about addressing an issue affecting a customer.  It is about resolving an issue affecting a customer.

Information regarding what went wrong and why it went wrong is important insofar as it can help the agent diagnose and remedy the situation.  It should not, however, play any role in transforming or defining an agent’s commitment to providing resolution.

5 Ways to Empower Employees to Exceed Customer Expectations

Creating great customer experiences — what leaders like Disney, Zappos and Nordstrom do on a consistent basis — is one of the few areas left for companies to differentiate and generate good margins. Making it happen, however, is easier said than done; fundamentally, it is a people issue.  How do you get employees to go beyond the call of duty to regularly exceed customer expectations? By empowering them to develop emotional connections with each customer.

Lesson from GNC: How a Customer-Centric Agent Won Back a Customer

The customer management community likes to focus on the negative.

If businesses are not customer-centric, they will lose customers.  If agents are not properly trained and empowered, they will ruin customer service interactions.  If customer service policies are not flexible and versatile, they will anger customers.

While a negative approach helps articulate the stakes of poor customer service interactions, it does not emphasize the benefit of customer-centric ones.

STOP! 5 Customer Service Mistakes You're About to Make

The good thing about customer centricity? 

Customers do not simply have to take you at your word.  Each interaction is an opportunity to vividly demonstrate your commitment to the customer.  Each interaction is an opportunity to prove that your rhetoric is not a hollow attempt at brand marketing but an honest articulation of corporate philosophy.

Top 5 Customer Service Metrics for 2014-15

There is measuring and there is managing.

Given the ease with which today’s businesses can collect, store and analyze performance metrics, organizations have little reason to refrain from measuring as many as possible.  Because business environments change, data that seems unimportant in the short term can prove critical in the future.  If cost and operational efficiency are not at stake, why choose to be sorry when you can be safe?