Your Customer Service Might Be Doing Better Than You Think

Dr. Jeanne Hurlbert, President — Hurlbert Consulting Group

• customer service • profit strategy • expert interview • management strategies • sales management • leadership training • sales training

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Your Customer Service Might Be Doing Better Than You Think

Randy MacLean, President of WayPoint Analytics, sits down with Dr. Jeanne Hurlbert, President of Hurlbert Consulting Group to discuss some of the data she has seen regarding satisfaction levels in customer service.

Jeanne is a consultant with a great deal of experience helping companies in the distribution industry put together concierge customer service programs. In today's market, this type of program can really bring a competitive edge to your company.

Surveys are used to ask your sales and customer service employees how satisfied they think their customers are, while also asking customers themselves how satisfied they are. This 360-degree view of the data often has surprising results.

One of the most interesting findings of Jeanne's survey data concerns the gap in the response results. Surprisingly, the gap is not that sales and customer service think they are doing better than they really are. It is actually that customers are more satisfied than the salesforce knows.

This is not to say that everything is perfect and there is nothing to work on. Positive overall satisfaction, while great, is not sufficient as many dimensions are boiled down into one measure. So, Jeanne's surveys delve into the details, where there is often room for improvement of specific aspects of sales and customer service.

Celebrate the Wins, Work on Improvements

Still, positive overall satisfaction should not be glanced over. Use it for team building, morale building, and offering rewards. Celebrate all the wins, big and little. In addition, show your team how they can be even better.

When your company is celebrating what they do well, it will show in morale. This winning attitude is very helpful in boosting how your people come across to customers. In turn, customers love dealing with people who think they're winners.

Since interactions with customer service are usually about problems, it's nice to have data to show that the effort, energy and care that you put in is generally translating into better customer service than you might realize.

For more information about Dr. Jeanne Hurlbert, visit: www.hurlbertconsulting.com