As technology marches on, you hear about all sorts of marketing: telemarketing, internet marketing, and so on. What you don't see businesses focused on anymore is the customer. Instead of asking for a name, most companies ask for your "customer ID number". Instead of saying "good morning, and thank you", you hear, "which department can I transfer you to". The customer has truly become lost in the shuffle of electronics and new age gadgets.
Customer service is all about focusing on the customer and on their needs. In the old days, back when we still traveled around by horse and buggy, a person could go into a store and could barter with a friendly clerk who knew their name, their occupation, how many children they had and if they'd had a good winter or not. Now, though, consumers are lucky if they find a pharmacy that prescribes the right medicine to the right person.
Good customer service focuses on building long term relationships with clients by supplying an ever-evolving line of products and excellent service. Businesses that believe in customer service are not focused on the profit from one sale, but rather making sure that the customer is happy with their purchase, so that they will think good thoughts about the company the next time they need a specific product. Customers want to feel appreciated and listened to. Great service is all about listening and caring about the customers, rather than planning their next ad campaign or sales deal.
Say that a consumer purchases a bed frame from a company. During that transaction, the salesman was rude and didn't listen to the consumer. When the consumer called a few days later to discuss a problem he had, he was hung up on. Now imagine this same customer purchasing the bed frame from a company that focuses on customer service. The consumer is listened to, and is helped. When he leaves, he feels as though the salesman really did care about him. The next time this consumer needs a piece of furniture, who do you think he is going to look to?
Good customer service can take take a good company and make it great! Assure your customers that you will be there for them and not only will you win repeat business, but unsolicited referrals. Some companies that have outsourced their customer service to the lowest bidder have realized this when their repeat business started to decline. Naturally, they ended up pulling this back in-house.
You can avoid this blunder by putting "great customer service" high on your mission statement. When you make you customer number one, your payoff will outshine any marketing campaign.
Almost every business can work with customer service, if they want to. The problem is that too many times, companies look to the future instead of to the present.
Customer service, like conversation, is dying. The modern corporate environment ? which is where you're likely to encounter customer service personnel in one form or another ? has put so much emphasis on career-building that many have forgotten how to focus on meeting the customers halfway. People have become so focused on managing their careers that they may have forgotten how to manage their responsibilities beyond meeting the bare minimum the company asks of them. For the past two decades, good customer service in the US corporate environment ? whether it's computer technical support or a fast food service ? is but a mere empty husk of what it used to be. Is it any wonder that many companies are outsourcing when they can?
India was the first stop for companies looking for cheaper employees to fill the ranks of their on-the-phone customer service departments. Indians have an accent and intonation that differs greatly from American English, with even the best training having difficulty making their manner of speaking not sound distinct to an American listener. However, India was also a natural location due to the IT boom that had occurred there. Many companies had moved what IT operations they could over to India, where the wages cost them less and there aren't so many demands for company perks and employee benefits. The greatest problem was still the accent, however. Despite their best efforts, trainers often find it nearly impossible to completely neutralize an Indian representative's accent ? and the stigma against agents with such an accent has only grown since they started their jobs.
The accent is probably the only consistent, persistent concern. That, and the moments when Indian agents simply start to seem unreasonable to US customers. There are many who believe that customer service is not the ideal thing for Indian representatives to be handling, particularly since there could be a bit of heavy-handedness to them when they're frustrated. Since it's quite easy for them to become agitated when the customer gets agitated, rather than attempt to defuse the situation and remain calm, they're not entirely suited for something like customer support. Customer support often demands calmer heads, where warm tones and comforting words are more valuable currency than the ability to out-argue someone or presenting technical data that's beyond the scope of most people's knowledge. That's when some US companies remembered the Philippines.
The former US colony's people have a reputation for being friendly, welcoming, and warm towards strangers, guests, and outsiders ? a sharp contrast to most of their neighbors. The country also has a strong background in English, having been under American occupation from some time. US companies have also had strong ties in the business sector of the country. These factors made it an excellent location for US companies to attempt to set up call centers in the country, which had the side effect of boosting the local economy by providing thousands ? if not millions ? of job opportunities.
The local people have accents, but trainers report that it is much easier to remove than the Indian accent. The country's history as a US colony also means it has a stronger background in American English, rather than the British English that is more prevalent in India. US media and trends have also been prominent parts of the country's entertainment scene, so US metaphors and figures of speech are not entirely unfamiliar. The friendliness of the people also make them good at resolving conflicts without resorting to combat tactics, with a vast number of representatives being calm and diplomatic when faced with an irate customer.
Harvey D. Ong has sinced written about articles on various topics from Gardening, Health and Birth Control. US Contact Point Provides Call Center Solutions and Outsourcing Services Solutions combined with latest technology. Visit us at |. Harvey D. Ong's top article generates over 60500 views. to your Favourites.