Moving Metrics Into Action

by Tim Montgomery, The Service Level Group

“Good customer service is more important now than ever” is a headline that has been used many times over the years to help get companies to realize where they need to focus. By now, I think we all know that good customer service is a necessity in every industry and is always important. What continually evolves is how customers define good service and the ways they tell each other about it. The Internet has given us a new vehicle for sharing praise and disappointment for companies with which we interact. Online forums and shopping Web sites have hundreds of ratings, comments and results – and many are focused directly on the service provided. Today, that one exception that falls through the cracks and upsets the customer can become the documented example that thousands of people read and consider prior to choosing to do business (or not) with a company.

So, is it really true that it’s more important now than ever? I think it’s just the opposite – anything that’s just “ok” puts you at risk. Companies now have to be looking for new ways to continually raise the bar and provide experiences that make customers proud of their decision to do business with them – and that compel customers to tell others about it. Negative comments posted on the Internet can bring a company to its knees; positive comments can take your organization to the next level. Your customer service today must be so good that people are happy….and willing to tell everyone – whether they know they’re telling thousands or not.

Contact centers are at the heart of the customer service experience. The best organizations have developed new ways to leverage their contact center as a true competitive advantage. In the past, companies could differentiate themselves from the competition with their customer-facing technologies – the Web, speech, routing, etc. Nowadays, even the smallest organizations can make their systems act just like that of the big enterprises -- the playing field is a whole lot more equal. The real differentiator between companies is the service they provide on every interaction and the impression that is left with the customer when they hang up the phone. In contact centers, our technologies provide a tremendous amount of data, and the best organizations are finding new ways to use this information to transform the business.

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