Tag Archives: quality customer service

Customer Service Pitfalls Part 3 [2023 Update]

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The Official Merchant Services Blog finishes its titanic trilogy on the affect Customer Service can have on a business. In our first blog we discussed anecdotal evidence and how it pertains to the perception of service and what can be learned from those anecdotes. In our second blog we took at look at the numbers, examining charts of data to determine a measured impact that customer service has on a business. The combination of strong anecdotal evidence and detailed charts demonstrated how integral quality customer service can be to a business’ financial success. Today we’re going to delve into the tips that get offered regarding inferior customer service — both tips on how customers can deal with customer service they find lacking and tips on how businesses can improve customer service that their customers find lacking.

I got onto this topic recently because of an online discussion that suggested that customers weren’t worth the effort of listening to their complaints. That discussion was sparked from  The story of Jennifer Hepler found on The Mary Sue. It brought up the concept of gamer entitlement and video game customers going too far in their negative complaints to video game developers. Added to that was this Forbes article about The Myth of Gamer Entitlement. This really created a framework where customer complaints were presented as too much hassle for game companies to listen to. So the game companies would place customer service extremely low on their priority list.

I really have issues with that concept. It makes no sense to me. Customers and quality customer service are extremely valuable to long-term business. So I set about to prove how valuable customer service can be for a business. After seeing the anecdotal evidence and the numerical data stack up, it’s quite clear that quality customer service has an impact on a business’ bottom line. Good customer service helps retain customers. Happy customers also give a business good word of mouth advertising — the most powerful and effective advertising a business can receive. Good customer service leads to high customer loyalty. High customer loyalty gives your business higher sales and a stronger brand identity.

What to Do if All is Not Well?

So let’s bring this back around to what started me on this line of thinking: Difficult Customers. The strategy that some video game companies are using to “deal” with the difficult customers was to launch a bit of an online campaign through gaming sites and other avenues to paint those difficult customers as unreasonable, and set the company up as a victim of their irrationality. From what I’ve seen and read of that option, the negativity has simply bred more negativity. Making the customers even more difficult and a lot of bad word of mouth has started to seep into the reputation of the company hurting their brand. So instead of creating an antagonistic atmosphere with difficult customers, I did a little research and found some tips and advice on how to deal with difficult customers and turn it into a positive.

The Customer’s Side

To get a handle on difficult customers I think it’s important to understand the perspective of the customer. This article by Mind Your Decisionsis amazing at giving us insight into that perspective — and it gives consumers a series of tips on how to get the service they desire from bad customer service situations. It hinges on the premise that for customers to get what they want from a business’ customer service department, their strategy should be reasonably unreasonable.

It states that being reasonable with bad customer service usually leads to the customer not getting what they want as they let the business continue to ignore their issue. It then states that being unreasonable with bad customer service also misses the mark as making a ruckus may get you what you want, but may leave you feeling like you made a mountain out of a molehill. So it advocates a strategy of being reasonably unreasonable: Holding firm, continually going after what it is you want from the company but not raising a ruckus while you follow that path.

The article is focused on giving customers advice on how to get businesses to respond to your desire for customer service: “When dealing with bad service, one of the easiest ways to be reasonably unreasonable is to explain you are a frequent customer and that you would like a full cash refund. Cash, unlike in-store discounts, can be used at competitors. This small request quickly gets the attention of managers who scramble to keep you happy. You may end up accepting an in-store discount, but it will likely be much larger because you started asking for cash.”

Articles like this are important to be aware of when you’re planning  your own customer service protocols. You find again and again that the advice offered to consumers is to not back down. To continue to push for service. To be difficult. Sure, there are always going to be a tiny selection of customers that are the exceptions to the rule — ones that are difficult to be difficult, ones that thrive off of confrontation, and ones that simply want to try and take advantage of your customer service to get something for nothing.

But these are the rare exceptions. Most of the time you are dealing with a customer that feels like they got a defective product or did not get the value of their purchase. They are seeking some sort of compensation, some understanding and some assistance. And because they feel justified in their crusade, they are going to feel entitled to service. They aren’t the unreasonable villains that the “gamer entitlement” tag suggests they are.

The moral of this story is a customer that wants a refund can be difficult about it. But can be turned back into a loyal customer if they receive understanding and compensation. It doesn’t even have to be in the form of a refund. But ignoring them or antagonizing them is only going to do more damage to your business and its reputation than the refund is usually worth. Most difficult customers aren’t that difficult once you initiate customer service that actually addresses their issues and their concerns.

Customer Service Tips

This article from Customer Service Manager offers five tips for dealing positively with difficult customers. Those five tips all hinge on engaging the customer’s emotions. As the article states in its conclusion: “Make no mistake about it; customers, be they internal or external, are primarily driven by their emotions. It’s therefore important to use human responses in any interaction particularly when a customer is upset or angry. If customers like you and feel that you care, then they’re more likely to accept what you say and forgive your mistakes.”

The tips break down to:

  • Have a thick skin. Be aware the customer is going to be angry and upset and don’t let that get to you.
  • Listen. Listen to what they have to say.
  • Don’t use the word sorry. Sorry, the article says is overused and has little impact with difficult customers.
  • Show empathy. The customer is upset and empathy will help mollify their anger.
  • Build a rapport. While empathizing with the customer opens the door for you, building a rapport gets you to your destination — customer service.

Most other lists I’ve found on how to deal with difficult customers breaks down to a similar set of tips. The important tips that I repeatedly ran into were all a variation on listening to the customer, showing them understanding and not letting their anger get to you. It all comes back to giving the customer your time, your ear and your energy. Giving them the attention they need to service them and address their issues. You do this and most of the customer service complaints you get are defused. You turn many of these customers into loyal fans of your business who will turn around and spread the news that you give excellent service. You attract more business and build a reputation for your business.

For me, the bottom line of customer service is this: There’s no such thing as gamer entitlement. Those gamers are customers who purchased your product and they are entitled to quality customer service. If you run a video game company you should beat the pants off of your competitors by being one that gives quality customer service. You’ll set yourself apart from the ones that are painting their own customers as the villains and themselves as the victim of a group of people who simply want what they paid for.

Customer Service: Help Desk Stress Test

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Today The Official Merchant Services Blog continues its special two-part series on Customer Service. We can’t stress enough how essential it is to focus on Customer Service –– especially now during the holiday shopping season when your business may be barraged with a lot more customers who have a lot more questions.

Yesterday, we shared with you a blog from Lauren Carlson at Software Advice. The blog gave detailed tips on how to prepare business and its customer support team for the holiday shopping season. Today we bring you the second half of Carlson’s customer service saga which focuses on utilizing the holiday season as a way to stress test your help desk.

Carlson suggests that “the holiday season represents a perfect laboratory for examining your business, as well as your performance at each point of customer contact.”

This is a compelling concept. As Carlson says, the holiday season gives you a chance to analyze your business –– especially the customer support side of it –– at super speed. Doing so lets merchants identify high performance areas that are effective under the added stress of the holiday season, as well as get some insight into areas that may need some improvement. To get merchants in the mindset of how the microcosm of the holiday season can fuel some quick on the spot analytics Carlson asks: “So you had 72 percent first-call resolution rates in August. Great. What about the day after Christmas?”

Carlson keys in on five areas of support that companies should examine during their holiday season to gauge their help desk.

How Effective is That Training?

Many merchants add seasonal help for the holiday shopping rush. It’s a tried and true method for the retail industry, for example, to take on some extra help at the end of the year to push through all that added hours and increase in customers. Carlson suggests this can be a catalyst for analyzing employee onboarding –– and get a good look at how effective your company’s system is for training and preparing new support staff.

She says “Companies should use this opportunity to examine the success of their training techniques, as well as the usability of their system.”

It’s really sound advice to keep track of your support staff’s effectiveness, and the holiday season definitely gives a merchant a focused period of time to quickly measure the staff’s performance.

How Well Do You Deal With Surprises?

The next area in help desk performance that Carlson says a company should measure during the holiday shopping season is something called The Collaboration Period. Carlson describes the first nine months of the year as a build-up or preparation period for a business. Mitch Lieberman, of Sword Ciboodle, calls that period the Coordination Period in Carlson’s blog. But, according to Lieberman, the holiday rush shifts into the Collaboration Period. Carlson quotes Lieberman as saying “Collaboration is when something is outside what could or should have been easily coordinated. Are you ready to collaborate on these emergency issues that you didn’t predict?”

Essentially, merchants can use this time to study how well support staff deals with surprises. How well can they go off script? How effectively can they cope with issues that crop up that weren’t prepared for and which aren’t on an FAQ or a PDF or a Guidelines e-mail.

Where Do the Problems Get Handled?

The next area of help desk effectiveness that Carlson suggests merchants should look at is peak load management. Businesses that bulk up with some seasonal help during the holiday rush tend to train those new employees on the basic level of support. They get training to help them stick to a script, deal with the first tier of issues in a protocol, or use the FAQ that was designed for the holiday season –– all really basic stuff. The intent being to keep the easy stuff out of the way of the veteran support team members, who are then expected to effectively handle the harder issues.

Carlson says some interesting statistics can be gathered through this dynamic: “Measuring the percentage of first-call resolutions compared to the percent of calls escalated will help to inform your peak load strategy. “

What’s Your Worst Case Scenario?

The next area Carlson says companies should analyze harkens back to the boy scouts mantra of “Be Prepared.” Carslon says “assume something bad is going to happen. It’s not pessimism. It’s good business. If you assume disaster will strike, you will have an emergency response system in place that’s ready to manage the disaster on all channels.”

It’s never good when disaster strikes. But it’s a much heavier burden on a merchant when disaster strikes during the high pressure holiday shopping period. So this is a good time period to gauge what a company’s emergency response process is. And, if things do go bad, get an up front look at how effective that protocol is. Being proactive, Carlson suggests, is the best approach. Use this time period to analyze your emergency procedures and tweak them to be the most effective they can be.  As Carlson puts it, “having proactive procedures mapped out for unforeseen emergencies will not prevent call spikes, but it can lower the spikes to a manageable amount.”

Are the Customers Satisfied?

The core element of your customer support team, and your help desk, is customer satisfaction. Is the customer happy? That’s what it all comes down to. Companies should be measuring customer satisfaction year-round. And Carlson’s blog concedes that point. But Carlson points out that the holiday shopping season heightens the importance of customer satisfaction. This is something The Official Merchant Services Blog has discussed during our series on holiday shopping as well. The stakes are higher during the focused frenzy that happens after Black Friday, so you need to make sure you’re keeping even the most basic tenets of customer service in mind at all times.

Carlson asks the question, “you might have great satisfaction rates during low-volume times of year, but is your support team still on par when things get hectic?”

She suggests something as simple as a survey of your customers asking how you did during the holidays –– basic feedback.

Host Merchant Services likes the idea of reaching out to the customers for feedback. It’s an effective way to continue to maintain the long-term relationship building goal of customer support. Or, simply put, it’s a nice way to let your customers know you value them and their input. HMS suggests utilizing your social media tools for a survey like this, as you can quickly interact with your customers through those tools and they can help you track and analyze the responses.

Conclusion

This is an effective checklist of ideas for merchants to monitor their customer support capabilities. There are some concrete suggestions here on ways to collect data that will help shape a company’s goals for delivering quality customer service. Carlson gives a lot of good tips in both parts of her series. The Official Merchant Services Blog is glad she shared these with us and hopes you find them useful too.

If anyone else has some tips or suggestions on how to improve customer service now in the holiday shopping season or any other time of the year, feel free to share in the comments section.