I was recently asked, “What is the biggest customer service challenge facing companies today?” My response was that it’s the same challenge companies faced last year, the year before that, and even 28 years ago: inconsistency of customer service quality and the customer experience.
The former head of SAS Airlines, Jan Carlzon, coined the term ‘moments of truth’ in 1987, referring to every time an employee of the company came into contact with a customer. Today, the same meaning is applied to ‘touchpoints along the customer journey’. While technology has enabled many more self-service options in 2015 than existed 28 years ago, customer interactions with employees persist and continue to have a disproportionate impact on overall customer satisfaction.
Regardless of how seamless one’s self-service check-in experience was for her latest flight, eventually she’s going to encounter an airline employee. And when she does, for better or worse, that interaction will supplant her check-in experience. No matter how user-friendly the technology or how flawless the omnichannel experience, ultimately a customer’s perception of service quality hinges on the nature of her one-on-one interaction with a service provider.
Too many companies focus myopically on the infrastructure and technology to support voice of the customer (VOC), customer experience (CX), and enterprise feedback management (EFM) processes and neglect their greatest customer experience asset and feedback source: competent, customer-focused, and engaged employees who are both capable AND inspired to consistently provide superior customer service.
A majority of companies employ capable workers who possess adequate job knowledge and demonstrate sufficient job skill. These employees know WHAT to do and HOW to do it. Where most companies fail (and where the consistency of customer service quality routinely breaks down) is they stop there, assuming that employees are now equipped to consistently deliver exceptional customer service.
What these companies overlook is the need to define and share the organization’s purpose, which informs employees about their highest priority at work. Employees need to know WHY they are doing WHAT they are doing HOW they are doing it. Instead of just being given something to work ON (duties and tasks), employees must be given something to work TOWARD (purpose).
The result is a workforce that is not only capable of providing superior customer service, but inspired to do so consistently.
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Illustration by Aaron McKissen.
