When businesses first started using websites, the sites were very basic and content was king. Then as the technology evolved rapidly, sites became technology driven as developers tried to outdo each other and show their mastery of the technology. The end result was that whilst the sites may have looked great and were fulled to the brim with clever uses of the available technology, content was pushed into the background and navigating the sites was often non-intuitive and difficult.
Things are changing again – one of the key challenge now is for businesses to stop focusing on the technology and to focus onthe business benefits you can achieve with the technology.
This has to happen if businesses are to put the customer back into customer service. ( For the sake of this article I understand customer care to be a subset of customer service). At a macro level, organisations need to examine every point in their day-to-day operation where interaction takes place with the customer. They need to ask themselves whether their channels of communication and their processes are self-serving or customer focused. Hiding terms and conditions in the small print is unacceptable; transparency is the “new” buzzword.
I say “new” because I remember running customer service workshops in the mid-90s and saying the same thing! The current challenge is to make sure that our enthusiasm for the opportunities offered by social media technology doesn’t get in the way of our ability to deliver high standards of customer service.
At a micro level, staff need to understand that a heart motivated by self-interest views the world in terms of ‘give a little, take a lot’. They will be more focused on their job security, their pay, their next break rather than on the customer.
Senior management need to understand that that unless they treat their staff in the way they want staff to treat customers, high standards of customer service won’t happen! It’s a challenge but the organisations that get this right will be the ones that thrive in the next decade.