Actual Customer Service, What’s That?

There was a time when you could walk into any establishment, find what you were looking for and walk out as a lifelong customer of that establishment. That was the way business was done and even directly affected the bottom line. Since then, economic and business conditions have changed, and the customer service norm now is something we don’t even recognize.

One of the biggest victims of “strategic cost analysis” thinking is customer service. Providing sound support and service to customers is so alien now, it simply is not the primary concern of most businesses. The reasons you will hear are because other so-called projects, politicking, departmental tasks and of course cost must take precedence. Another victim of this way of thinking is employees now seriously lack product and service knowledge, because customer service is the fundamental reason for employees to attain that product knowledge in order to provide better customer service. Without it, companies are finding it difficult to educate employees and even when they do the results are mediocre. So, the company loses the customer, business and their product creditability take a hit, company brand gets tainted, and the business suffers a great loss.

Still the issue remains if the problem exists how do we fix it and what do we do not let it get bad again? To answer that you would also have to ask why or how the issue took place in the first place? some managers reference the issue being too many of their subordinates, even themselves, end up being caught in the day-to-day and putting out fires. Which could lead to wonder who really has time to properly listen to the concerns of the customer and provide a resolution-based solution.

That brings it to resolution solving. According to Harvard Business article , most managers understand that their customers will flee because of lack of great customer service. Many organizations will boast top notch reviews online and great feedback as shining pillar of great customer service to their customer base. However, I would ask how many of them provided a satisfactory resolution to the customer. As in, did you solve the customer’s issue? If the answer is anything but a resounding YES, then you have not solved their problem. What good is a 5-star review then? Unless it’s based on an actual customer problem that resolved, closed happy helpdesk ticket. Then, next time they could go to the competitor because they would’ve solved the issue, the actual problem. So, it always really to comes down to a simple question...did my issue get resolved yes or no?

Overall, bad customer service cannot be blamed on the product or personnel or even on a CRM. It can only be blamed on lack of organizational leadership. You see, with strong leadership there is a sense of vision and purpose instilled at every departmental level and engrained in every employee regardless of their position within the organization. With bad leadership, even if you have a great ERP, CRM, high- quality product and / or personnel, it will still fall short in providing great customer service. And that would be simply because leadership has NOT made it crystal clear that what they care about is customer retention through actual customer service.

Jameel Saqib
Co-Founder, McCord Telematics – GoMcCord
November 7, 2022