Customer Care - Liability or Reliability

CUSTOMER ATTRACTION VS CUSTOMER RETENTION:

There is no doubt in the fact that the sole purpose of starting a business is earning money. People invest because they yearn to earn. The investors never invest their time and capital if they find the opportunity to be impotent of breeding a perpetually multiplying business. In order to turn their dreams into reality, they enhance their production scale along with accessing new markets. Enhanced production and making new customers is an inter-related phenomenon. At the same time, the investors pay a serious heed to retaining the existing customers.

Since a market is nothing but another name of a bunch of customers, therefore the analysis of market forces i.e. the needs of improvements in an organization, the wants of customers, the demand of products and supply of goods revolves around the study of customers. To attract newer ones and retain the existing customers, organizations set up customer-care departments; the departments which serve the customers, satisfy them and make sure that their experience with the organizations is always better than the previous one.

Becoming a champion demands guts; retaining the title demands toil and skills, they say. Organizations make new customers by putting their guts into work, but they have to put toil and skills into work in order to retain them. To retain the customers, along with achieving other goals, the organizations devise and adopt SOPs (Standard Operating Procedures).

Interestingly, customer retention is customer satisfaction indeed. And every individual customer is different from the other one. Therefore, in order to satisfy every single customer, good organizations go beyond the SOPs and JDs (Job Description).

A  Customer-care department is the department which bridges the gap between customers and the organization. No department could be as beneficial and crucial as the customer-care department could be, for this department knows what a customer actually wants, what he needs, what he thinks, and what his feedback about the product is; and above all, what is his perception of and loyalty for the organization.

Customer-care asks for strong nerves especially when it is to be imparted from front offices and contact centers. It is known as one of the most stressful jobs in the world as it has to buffer down the pressures from both sides i.e. pressures bulging from within the organization and from outside.

The employees have to have knowledge of everything about the organization and its competition and to have skills of people handling in minimum time frame.

CUSTOMER CARE – THE FACE OF THE ORGANIZATION:

Customer care people are the face of the organization. If they are unhappy, their customers will remain unhappy even if the organization is introducing the best products.

Customer care is not only the face of the organization but it is also the heart of the organization as it feels the pain of the customers and suggests areas of improvement in product and processes.

A customer who suffers from a bad product or the bad services comes to the customer care people. They register the resentments of the customer and get them resolved according to the customer’s satisfaction.

PROBLEMS FACED BY CUSTOMER CARE:

They have a long list of complaints that other departments do not give required attention to the issues they highlight and do not respond to them as quickly as it is required. The problem lies right there as there is always a question mark when it comes to the satisfaction of the customer care employees. They do not feel empowered when their feedback on any new product or process goes unheard. They feel dissatisfied when there is an unusual delay from the backend departments in resolving an issue which dissatisfies customers. They face an apathetic response from the other departments like marketing, technical, sales etc. Just imagine, customer care employees stop giving feedback and suggestions to improve the product and processes, would any of the department be able to meet customers’ expectations? If the answer is NO then all other departments have to be in a close contact with customer care to get better results of their own domains and in the longer run, for the whole organization.

WHERE IS CUSTOMER STRATEGY?

David Rance, CEO of Round and a former customer care director for a UK based telco, says, “One of the key questions I ask from the organizations all the time is ‘What is your customer strategy? Most organizations don’t seem to have one. They have a business strategy, a marketing strategy, a sales strategy and sometimes even a customer service strategy. But that’s all very internally focused and as a result it’s unlikely to be aligned or consistent for customers.”

WHAT GOOD ORGANIZATIONS DO?

It is said that the voice of customer care remains unheard because it is considered as a department which does not earn money for the organization but it costs too much cost to maintain its business. And other departments like sales, marketing & technical departments are given more importance because they bring money.

This is a wrong conception.

“Retaining customers earn more money than generating customers.” This is the strategy of those organizations who keep flourishing.
A loyal and happy customer brings more customers than a sales person. And earning pleasure of a customer can be done through customer care only. One who can give better feedback about how to develop a “customer strategy” is customer care department. This department can helps in developing such customer strategy that not only satisfies and retains customers but it also helps in generating revenue for the organization.

TREND IN PAKISTAN:

The recent economic slump has hit all the organizations badly which forced them to change their strategies, even for running the business through customer care offices. From banking sector to the telecom industry, almost all the organizations opted to have outsourced contractual employees instead of having permanent staff to serve the customers. The idea was not as bad as it apparently seemed to be because it not only reduced the cost to serve each customer but it also generated revenue from different customer care channels. The good part of this whole transition was this that the organizations made conscious efforts not to compromise on the quality of services although it shattered the customers’ experience with the organizations initially however it gradually improved. But to provide outstanding services to the customers in the existing competitive environment, the organizations have to train their contractual employees well as everyone in the industry is convinced that to minimize churn threats, the organizations have to rely on customer care department as it plays a vital role in developing strong relationship with the customers, the relationship which brings business.

LIABILITY OR RELIABILITY?

It is the organization who decides whether customer care is a liability or reliability however the truth is, customer care is reliability but the condition is; you have to listen to them what they say as they speak customers’ language—the customer who is the blood of every business. Customer is the backbone of every business and so is the customer care.

What keeps an organization glowing?

Human resource is the precious-most resource of an organization. Interestingly, most of the organizations do not give the due importance to this significant part. The resource which makes strategies, enhances sales, reduces cost, generates revenue and develops a word-of-mouth’ for the organizations, always remains unhappy.

It is said that people do not quit their jobs because they are unhappy with the organization, but they resign because they are unable to give the input towards their work which satisfies them.
What satisfies them is their performance; when they enjoy doing their tasks, they perform exceptionally well. They do not even think what they are being paid for their services. Instead, they focus on their performance without competing with others. They try to excel themselves to the level that they can beat their own records. This surpass brings them a profound satisfaction.

This self-satisfaction mechanism can be devised through the effective management of the human resource. Here lies the role of the people manager who needs to know the power of his written and spoken words, his anger and smile, his attitude and behavior, and his attention and indifference to his people.

The organizations generally do not fall because of the bad strategies, but they fall because they encounter bad managers during the decline. It is important to note that bad managers are not those who are rude or negative in their selection of words, instead bad managers are those who do not know the importance of their post and their role.

Most of the people managers do not know the significance of their words which causes depression and stress for their subordinates. This stress directly affects the employees’ performance that eventually causes an impasse in way of achieving the organization’s and objectives, and eventually goals; thus leaving the mission statement unfulfilled.

To enjoy the fruits of effective management and consequently to be a role-model for the subordinates, a manager has to bear the below mentioned points in mind;

1. PATIENCE:

When it comes to errors committed by an employee, “No reaction is the best reaction” they say. A manager has to remain cool and patient come whatever may. If a manager reacts to any situation or if he is short-tempered and so stern that his subordinates have to think twice before talking to him then there is no doubt left in the fact that he is a bad manager.

If a manager cannot manage his own emotions, one wonders how can he manage others’. Knowing the right job for yourself is quite fundamental to your management skills. For example, if you think that you are a task manager, then you should not accept any other responsibility and right away refuse to get a job of people management or any other for that matter. Managing people and managing tasks are two different skills. A good manager knows his strengths well. A good task manager will never accept the role of a people manager, and vice versa.

2. YOUR WORDS PLAY A MIRACULOUS ROLE IN OTHERS’ LIVES:

The people manager must understand the importance of his words.  He should know what could be the impact of what he says and how important his casual and formal talk could be. His words can boost the morale of his people and can demoralize them as well. He remains effective as long as his angers and smiles are well-managed. When he says, “You look really good in green” that means he is not only boosting his subordinate’s morale but also he is adding same color in the subordinate’s wardrobe. He has to be very careful in passing any comments especially the ones which highlight the areas of improvements because such comments are normally taken as negative feedback.

3. DO NOT EVALUATE PEOPLE, OBSERVE THEM:

We have a habit of passing comments on almost everyone in our daily life. We evaluate people on the basis of our previous experiences. We do it even when we meet people for the first time. It may work in day to day life but it is deemed as a fatal error for a manager. A people manager needs to deal with every individual differently. Before dealing with an individual, he has to keep the background, the protocol and the aptitude of an individual in view. The Creator has not repeated any individual. A manager has to bear this law of nature in mind and deal with a new individual anew. As a manager, you need to observe the one whom you are dealing with before developing any opinion.

The difference between evaluation and observation could be stated as; evaluation is normally biased and observation is always unbiased.

The edge of observing people over evaluating them is that you can come to their strengths and shortcomings with an undeniable documentary proof. This proof is produced as a result of taking the readings (log or a series of events) of the subordinate’s performance.

4. FOLLOW THE PATTERN:

Before giving any feedback to your subordinate, you need to follow a pattern. A pattern means, maintaining a sheet which carries all the events of the entire department, such as, if you find someone coming late to the office and leaving early without informing you, do not throw a comment or ridicule him on the day when he first time commits this error. You need to tell him clearly and politely that “Official timings begin at 9am and you reached at 9:20am today. Please try to reach office by 9am”. And mark it in the sheet against his name. If he improves, mention the same in sheet and encourage him and if he does not improve, repeat the same.

Always give him time to improve and make it a practice. For obtaining better results, you need to give feedback on a monthly or quarterly basis.

A good sign of a bad people manager is that he will always wait for the last month of a working year i.e. December to highlight his subordinate’s shortcomings. In this way he intends to hurt the subordinate’s ACR (appraisal).

A good sign of a good people manager is that he keeps a log of events to improve the employee’s performance, and not to punish or ridicule him. Encouragements breed what punishments and ridicules do not.

5. BE CLEAR ON CONSTRUCTIVE AND POOR FEEDBACK:

You must know the difference in constructive feedback and poor feedback. There is no such thing like good or bad feedback. Good feedback is misunderstood as the one where you praise your subordinate and bad means where you tell him that he was wrong while performing a task. In a new era of management suite, no such feedback exists.

Good feedback has been replaced by constructive feedback and bad feedback has been replaced by poor feedback.

Constructive feedback always contains a log of a series of events (documentary proof) and which gives a clear guideline to the subordinates what is expected by him, what errors he has been making and how can he improve in a given time frame. It is always tightly structured and helps groom the subordinates.

Constructive feedback is a report, not a story.

On the contrary, poor feedback is always emotional and unstructured which does not contain guidelines for the subordinates and never highlights the areas of improvement especially the how-to-improve part is always missing.

6. NEUTRALIZING ILLUSIONS:

Neutralizing illusions is one of the biggest tasks of a people manager. There is a misconception that stick has a stronger impact in “carrot & stick” method. People managers think that their subordinates perform well when they are pressurized and they come up with the demands when they are appreciated. It becomes very difficult to handle them when they claim for promotion or increment on the basis of few appreciation letters or words which are used to boost their morale.

A manager has to give a clear picture of the organizations’ goals, the market situation, overall profit ratio, the competition within and outside the organization and the targets they achieved as an organization.

He needs to discuss all the elements which play vital role in promotions and increments. He should not break the chain of communication until the subordinate is satisfied.

7. LOYALTY WITH MANAGERS:

One more important fact which every manager has to understand is; people are not loyal to organizations, they are loyal to their managers. If your personality is acceptable and respectable to your subordinates then they will work for you and it will be beneficial for the whole organization, including the employee himself & the manager.

8. HAVE A HEART:

A manager has to have an empathetic heart. A heart that can feel the pain of learning new things, facing new challenges, having an unpleasant day and above all, the ups and downs of family affairs. However he should not try to behave like a father although employees expect the same at times, but a manager should be clear on the fact that he is a colleague of his subordinates who lives with them but has different job description.

He needs to develop repute with his subordinate that they should look up to him when they are in trouble. Yes, he can enjoy the status of a fatherly-figure but for that purpose he needs to help his people grow as strong individuals who can handle things on their own without giving up their personal and professional responsibilities.

9. DEVELOP A REPLACEMENT:

It is a life-threatening suggestion. Isn’t it?

No, certainly it is not!

Let’s see how this suggestion remains life-infusing instead of life-threatening.

When you feel that the circumstances have touched the point that you are comfortable with the job you have been assigned with and the people around you have started relying on you, and there are some tasks which cannot be accomplished without your help; stop and contemplate. It is not the matter of accomplishing something godly. It is always bad. Do NOT be happy, for it is an alarming moment for you.

Put it this way, if you cannot be replaced, you cannot be promoted. Therefore, always pass on your skills to your subordinates.

If your hands are filled with the routine tasks, you are not ready for the new challenges. Follow the law of nature. That is, do not stick to one position only. If you don’t stick, it will guarantee your ascension on one hand, and on the other hand, it will help your subordinates perform well.

This aptitude will increase your potential and you may eventually become the manager of the managers.

10. MIRACLES?

Instill! Only satisfied employees can do miracles. Never forget this reality. The failure of employees in performing their jobs well is the failure of a manager in disguise, for it is the evidence that he remained comprehensively unsuccessful in managing their potential well. Help them in doing miracles for you.