It’s always wiser to learn from others’ customer service mistakes and not your own. If you don’t watch for the little customer service traps, you’re bound to fall like the rest.
One of the difficulties of getting customer experience right and organizing customer service actions so that they all work together towards a common customer good is that even the little things often make a big difference in the ultimate result that customers experience.
These five little mistakes can prove fatal for your customer experience strategy and will keep you from getting the type of customer loyalty results you really want for your organization.
1. Borrowing customer experience components from others
You might be thinking: If it works for them, I should do it too. That’s not right. Customer experience is very personal for each of your customers. What one customer wants from you may be very different from what another customer expects from a different company. This is why, when you’re improving your customer experience, any new element, service, feature, or process needs to align with the overall strategy you want to implement.
Anything you add has to fit into what your customers have previously experienced in your customer experience process and fit into the next step of the service experience journey.
2. Failing to invest in services, features, or tools
You can’t skimp on the necessary items that are required for your customer service team members to effectively deliver on your brand’s service promise.
From the customer’s standpoint, it’s infuriating when the people they rely on for solutions and information don’t have it and wildly frustrating as customer service agents to not be given the tools to do the work we know needs to be done.
3. Doing more before you’ve mastered your current offerings
We all want to discover the “next best thing,” right? Typically, companies invest a lot more in new projects, new purchases, and promoting what’s “new” than in what they’re already doing. Basic services may not seem thrilling, but they’re essential for our growth and well-being.
If we can’t masterfully execute and exceed our customers’ expectations with what we currently have, trying to add something new won’t completely win over the customer.
4. Failing to document your plan
The fact that you know it should be enough, right? The real effect of customer service and customer experience are often dismissed or overlooked because not enough detail has been documented about what is being done and the result of the work undertaken.
Even if you know your program inside and out, senior managers and executives can’t read your mind. And if they can’t read your mind, they can’t attribute results the company sees with work that they don’t know you’re doing.
Customer service isn’t a cost center. But in order to make customer service a profit center, we have to identify the actions being taken and the return of those actions to the organization.
5. Thinking that customer service success will come overnight
We’re all guilty in thinking that this one little change will mean all the difference. Even if this one little piece is all you’re missing, in reality, the result of your one little thing can often take time to permeate your team and organization. Simple put, it takes time for change to really solidify and to be established as the norm.
Not everyone can change what they do and how they do it by flipping a switch.
This is the nature of change. Change takes time. Change requires effort. Change is not easy. Even the simple items associated with customer service change can be hidden traps that will keep you from getting the most from your customer experience actions. Think it through, take your time, organize your actions in order to make the most of your customer service actions so that they lead to create that exceptional customer experience you want.
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