Here’s a great story by a guy whose company was off-shored out of business. In the process of going out of business he laid off his customer service department before dumping his production department, He found out that customers were happier without the customer service department. [The bigger story is here you may have to pay money or time (watch an ad) to read it – well worth either investment.]
Why?
It made me realize customer service is like middle management. It might have served a purpose at one time, but with free and simple communications, and ubiquitous information it’s probably time to re-think if the old structure is the best way to accomplish the goal. The real benefit of technology is to flatten organizations. But that requires using technology not just to do things in the same way (only faster). Rather you must use technology to do things that were not possible before. That’s what cutting edge organizations do.
Takeaway:
- Who is your customer service system designed to serve – your people or the customers?
Technorati Tags: entrepreneur, management, customer service, technology, small business
3 responses to “Does Customer Service Help or Hurt ?”
John,
I’d firstly like to comment that, for me, those 2 articles are about widely different subjects. The first is about customer service, the second is about globalisation and wage disparities.
I will stay with the first article as that was the subject of your post.
I think the issue you raise about who customer service serves can vary greatly in different companies and industries, and you cannot take a blanket view and say that customer service departments should just ‘be gone’ to help flatten organisations.
In the example given in the article, I would say that they are lucky to have got away with their actions. For me it proves a completely different point about that company, based on the following (based on very little eveidence) premise:
1. The company was being run very in-efficiently.
2. The internal relationship between customer services and functional department/activities was not integrated.
The reason for number 1. is that if all these customers can suddenly be in direct contact with the operational departments without any suggested problems is a miracle. I’m assuming the customer service department staff were busy in saying this, but all these phone calls should have created serious problems in terms of daily workflow and consumption of higher level staff time?!?
The reason for 2. is that they did not really have a customer service department if they did not have communications and empowerment systems in place to enable the customer service staff to have answers for clients. To me this is an organisational behavoir/structure issue.
That’s my two-pennies worth. In summary:
Customer service is definitely a ‘help’, and maybe it’s just companies treating it as a ‘bolt-on’ to their businesses that is causing the ‘hurt’. I’d like to know your thoughts on this view John.
Cheers, Mark.
Mark,
The second article was designed to give you the bigger story of the same guy the first article is about – and yes it is more about globalisation than customer service.
As for customer service, your post made me realize my wording was a little glib. I’ve corrected it. I do think in many instances a customer service department is installed as a buffer to “protect” operations people from customer interaction. Many do not have the “communications and empowerment systems” needed to serve the customer (as you put it so well). There was a time when those systems were much more costly than they are today – the technology, at least, has come down in price. But many companies have not adapted their behavioral systems to take advantage of this. If they did a lot of them would find that customer service is not needed at all – at least not in anything like it’s present form.
For example – I have one bank which has for a long time posted every transaction including copies of the front and back of each check and my available balance on-line as soon as they cleared their system. I had another that until just recently only posted the barest of transaction details, certainly no pictures of checks and just my “balance” no mention of if it was the available balance or not. Guess which one needed a larger customer service department? The same one that caused me more frustration and lost me as a customer.
I think in many ways you and I are saying the same thing.
John,
Yes, the Bank example is a good demonstration of a similar issue to the one I was broching.
I bet not many senior managers would look at their businesses and wonder why they have ‘x’ amount of resources commited to customer services. The focus when customer service is discussed is normally the ‘how’ of its performance and benchmarking, kpi’s etc.
It triggers a memory of a very old definition of managers as fire fighters. I can see the rush to get those call ‘cheap’ call centres up and running to deal with all those customer needs, with little real work done on why customers are needing to instigate so much contact in the first place!
Food for thought.
Cheers, Mark.