Customer Service – Where art thou ?
Customer Service seems to be such a common word in India with all the outsourcing that is going about. Do we really understand the term customer service at all, especially in the BPO industry. Many of the BPO services organizations work on processes which are customer service oriented or what they call as frontline tasks. Do they really know what is it that they are focusing on here
I remember an incident which happened to me when i went to a hotel in Bangalore. I had ordered a particular dish which i later realized that i did not enjoy much. I had an exasperated look on my face, exasperation at myself for not remembering this. The duty manager who was making the rounds saw my sour face, walked over and enquired as to what was it that troubled me. He sat next to me and over a conversation of 10 minutes or so coaxed it from me and then went over to cancel the order, pick a new one and deliver it to me in time that it took me to finish my drink. To me that was servicing a customer.
Customers are serviced nowadays when they stand before you asking for help. It is one thing to proactively walk over, extend support and make the customer feel wanted. It is a completely different thing when someone calls you and asks for help. At this time, we are bothered of measuring our talk times, efficiency of picking up phones and answering customers as quickly as possible. We do not look at the larger picture of providing a wholesome experience to the customer. We end up working in boundaries of our processes and forcing the customer to reach out using additional media and at times annoying them.
Have you ever wondered what happens when you take your car to your garage. There is a fatherly person who sits on a stool smoking his cigarette and sipping tea always. It is strange that this person seems to have the patience of an elephant and ends up talking to you for a long time, understanding your family, your profession, sympathizing with you on the rise in fuel prices or even the notoriety of being associated with the CWG committee. He does not then hand you over to the little man in the blue overalls under the car train. Rather he leads this person to you, explains the problem in a better technical language and then ensures that your needs are taken care of
In our call centers do we end up doing this. I am not sure we do. We end up transferring calls to other people, putting customers on hold so that they can hear the lousy music and create that high pressure crater waiting to blow.
We need to redefine our priorities in our service centers. At the end of the day your customer is always right since he ends up being the user, the promoter and the owner of your product
