Customer Engagement: Executive Perspectives, Part One
Over the weekend I read a Fortune online story by journalist@KatherineLewis that suggests customer service associates in contact centers should stop providing “scripted empathy.”
She states that industry experts agree that providing associates with scripts or “canned” responses to customer service defects can be misguided—and even somewhat disingenuous. This article made me think of recent meetings I had with two customer engagement executives.
I asked them what they believed it really means to go “above and beyond” when engaging customers and what role they believe consistency plays in the customer engagement process. I’ve summarized the conversations below:
What does going above and beyond really mean? How do you make it the norm when you engage with your customers?
Vice President, Customer Care, Retail Industry: Our first thought in our strategy around going above and beyond is a question: Are customer service associates having a transaction—or an interaction—with our customers? We greatly prefer interactions where we are providing service excellence and impacting loyalty. We really try to foster a culture that encourages answering relevant questions that customers may not even know to ask.
We try to understand what their challenges are, and what their needs are, and deliver the answers or services that map to their situation. We’ll also train agents to identify if there is something relevant that the customer needs to know about an item they just purchased, how to use the item, how to pair an item with other clothing items, how to store the item, etc.
We try to add value in every step of the customer experience cycle. We also ensure appropriate rewards and recognition programs are in place that encourage the right behaviors so that we drive customer engagement excellence through our company culture and incentives.
Vice President of Customer Experience, Major Hotel Brand: Going above and beyond means delivering more than is expected at the moment of truth. And, even more importantly, delivering genuine and personal interactions that make the customer want to deepen their relationship with us. We believe there are four primary ways that we can deliver top-percentile service and engagement:
- Enculturate: We cascade accountability for making things happen that delight our customer. We reward people who take risks and go out of their way to deliver a great customer experience or set good examples. We set the equation so that employees are rewarded when they go the extra mile.
- Empower: We create a safe place with boundaries for them to commit resources to a great customer experience.
- Enable: We deliver tools such as knowledge management to equip our associates with the knowledge to understand what a customer’s situation is. We encourage associates to behave proactively in how they deliver information and solutions.
- Engage: We cascade our ability to drive customer excellence deep within the organization and within our customer base by first treating our employees right. We believe that motivated, satisfied employees then deliver the excellence that deepens relationships with our customers.
So, what can you do to help enable your organization to provide service that is consistent, excellent and genuine? Take a first step by looking at your organization’s service delivery and processes from outside-in—from the perspective of your customers.
Listen to some of the recorded interactions between customers and your staff. Examine the training that contact center associates receive. Are there any “scripted” behaviors or expectations? If so, consider ways to deliver a more genuine customer experience—your customers will thank you.
I’ll share more insights from my discussion with the two customer engagement executives in part two of this blog series.
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