Forrester survey finds customer-facing employees see larger gap in communications than managers do. According to an article by the decline of customer service is
typically blamed on the poor attitudes of unmotivated workers. That
certainly can explain some poor customer experiences, but too often,
customer-facing employees truly, desperately want to please—and simply
can't. That’s potentially the case for more than eight in 10
workers (e.g., bank clerks, call center operators, nurses, bank
managers, and shop supervisors) who responded to a recent Forrester
Research survey. These respondents said there’s a definite gap between
the experience the customer expects from them and the experience they
can deliver.
Conflicting Perceptions
The Forrester study asked both managers and front line employees if they thought their organizations communicated well with customers through old and new channels such as text and email. Nearly three times as many managers as employees (43 percent versus 17 percent) believed their organizations communicated via these channels.
Meanwhile, employees were more than twice as likely as managers to say their businesses had older systems requiring customers to communicate in ways they didn’t always want to. Customer-facing workers said they were obligated to use systems that consumed too much of their time on low-value tasks—time and energy that they could have been investing in a richer customer experience.
Inferior systems make it hard for workers to find facts quickly; create documents; edit, write, and process information; solve complex exceptions; and leverage mobile solutions, according to the study. "As a result, [customer-facing employees] are not actively engaged with their customers," states the Forrester report. But why do customer-facing employees see this situation when managers don’t?
“The answer may be that these communication issues fall through the cracks,” the study states. “They do not result in exceptions, lost customers, or delayed orders—things that managers track—but they will degrade the customer experience over time. Not closing these gaps through improved document and process support may result in inefficient workers, high employee turnover, declining competitiveness, and lost revenue.”
Give good people good tools. A positive customer experience requires truly empowering the people involved in it. Companies must equip them with information solutions that enable swift problem-solving on any communications channel—in person, mobile, land line, Web, chat, text, video conference, or email.
Look at your workflow. Good tools require sound underlying processes. Focus on streamlining processes to foster information mobility from the back office to customer-facing systems and customer-facing employees. Customer-facing workers need agile processes that will give them the ability to handle exceptions in more flexible ways by having expert guidance, quick communication with experts, and the ability to start new case processes.
Understand the full impact of poor customer service. Well-equipped workers will be able to delight the customer and take pride in their productivity. This positive feeling will carry over to the next interaction and can pay off for the company over the long term. It will also help address negative attitudes about the work. Proper tools, workflows, and training will give your employees everything they need to turn around the quality of their customer interactions. And when you’re sure your employees are properly equipped, check in on their attitudes. Hopefully, they’re brighter than when you started.
Please find the full article here. Sluggish Information Flow Is Behind Many Customer Service Issues - CRM Magazine
Conflicting Perceptions
The Forrester study asked both managers and front line employees if they thought their organizations communicated well with customers through old and new channels such as text and email. Nearly three times as many managers as employees (43 percent versus 17 percent) believed their organizations communicated via these channels.
Meanwhile, employees were more than twice as likely as managers to say their businesses had older systems requiring customers to communicate in ways they didn’t always want to. Customer-facing workers said they were obligated to use systems that consumed too much of their time on low-value tasks—time and energy that they could have been investing in a richer customer experience.
Inferior systems make it hard for workers to find facts quickly; create documents; edit, write, and process information; solve complex exceptions; and leverage mobile solutions, according to the study. "As a result, [customer-facing employees] are not actively engaged with their customers," states the Forrester report. But why do customer-facing employees see this situation when managers don’t?
“The answer may be that these communication issues fall through the cracks,” the study states. “They do not result in exceptions, lost customers, or delayed orders—things that managers track—but they will degrade the customer experience over time. Not closing these gaps through improved document and process support may result in inefficient workers, high employee turnover, declining competitiveness, and lost revenue.”
Three Paths to Improvement
Give good people good tools. A positive customer experience requires truly empowering the people involved in it. Companies must equip them with information solutions that enable swift problem-solving on any communications channel—in person, mobile, land line, Web, chat, text, video conference, or email.
Look at your workflow. Good tools require sound underlying processes. Focus on streamlining processes to foster information mobility from the back office to customer-facing systems and customer-facing employees. Customer-facing workers need agile processes that will give them the ability to handle exceptions in more flexible ways by having expert guidance, quick communication with experts, and the ability to start new case processes.
Understand the full impact of poor customer service. Well-equipped workers will be able to delight the customer and take pride in their productivity. This positive feeling will carry over to the next interaction and can pay off for the company over the long term. It will also help address negative attitudes about the work. Proper tools, workflows, and training will give your employees everything they need to turn around the quality of their customer interactions. And when you’re sure your employees are properly equipped, check in on their attitudes. Hopefully, they’re brighter than when you started.
Please find the full article here. Sluggish Information Flow Is Behind Many Customer Service Issues - CRM Magazine
No comments:
Post a Comment