INFOGRAPHIC: Ten steps to brilliant social customer service

71 per cent of people who have experienced positive social customer care will recommend that brand to others

Social media has opened up a whole new battleground, where brands are fighting for the attention of consumers.
Via such platforms as Facebook and Twitter, consumers can have direct contact with their favourite brands 24/7 – whether that is for customer service, complaint, purchase or just a bit of banter.
The attitude of a brand on social media is now just as, if not more important than in a bricks and mortar branch. 71 per cent of consumers who have a good experience on social media will share the brand with a friend.
Sentiment reckons that 90 per cent of disgruntled customers can be sweetened up and retained with great customer service, and where better to engage them that on social media?
There are plenty of positives for using social media – and its not just posting cute kitten pictures to encourage people to buy – however only 36 per cent of consumers have had an issue resolved quickly via the platform.
If your business isn’t socially savvy with regards to online and mobile, then you really are missing a trick.

Author: Phil Tottman on Mobile Entertainment

Common Sense while using an ATM machine that reads "Please Insert your Card"

The man in black (see photo below) is the security man on duty at a bank's branch on Lagos mainland when i got there to withdraw some money from an ATM machine recently.

  He said it is 'common sense' enough to know that the ATM that reads 'please insert your card' as pictured below, is not working.



I was on the ATM queue waiting for my turn but no one knew for sure why the ATM machine on the left was not in use besides it had the message 'please insert your card or press "ACCEPT" button to perform a cardless transaction'. Just when i started wonderng why, a woman went ahead to insert her card and it fell into an empty space inside the machine. On a closer look we realised the card reader or whatever it should be was not there.
I was sorry for the unsuspecting woman because i know from past experience, i have been on a queue like this one, everyone on one ATM machine while the other one abandoned for inexplicable reasons. On some occassions someone comes around and tries to make a withdrawal from the abandoned machine, and finds out that it is working; then everyone starts scrambling to take their turn on a new queue.
I guess people are usually weary of checking out an abandoned (or deserted) ATM machine with their debit cards for possible reasons of loosing their cards or in the least wasting, their time when it may have been tried by several other persons anyway.
I guess that is why this security man said - to the woman who put her card into an ATM machine that reads 'please insert your card..' - it is common sense to know that the machine is not working.
After taking these snapshots in other to share the story, a man who had been on the queue and had joined others to complain about the misleading instruction displayed on the machine came up to me and asked that i delete the pictures from my phone, that he is a staff of that branch of the bank and that he will make sure that the woman's card is not destroyed but returned to her on Monday morning. Well, i encouraged him to do for the woman like he said, but i am going to keep the pictures and share the story to encourage good customer service which i think in this case demands that the security man who is a representative of the bank at this time, show empathy and advice the woman the return on Monday morning to seethe officer in charge.
At least with these snapshots i realised some positive outcome as this man who was on the queue condemning the actions of the bank came out (of hiding it seems) to pacify the already distraught woman.

How Service Desk is affecting customer experience

I once served in this capacity and i can tell you the observations made in this post are true. Co-workers who do not appreciate or possess these attributes can make it difficult for the others, so creating a bad image for the team. In one instance, a manager told me "why the hurry, after all she just resumed today"  when i was making frantic efforts to setup IT work tools for a new staff. It was bad enough that i did not get prior information about the new staff's resumption date. For the service desk staff 'minimum downtime' 'excellent service delivery' are key.
What is key elements how service desk is able to affect customer experience? Read my five observations about critical areas especially in IT service desk domain. 

1) Courageous staff – Service desk is by definition window to the IT meaning window to service provider also. What does it mean? Service desk is from service provider staff (2 and other levels of support) staying on customer side. Service desk must internally “fight” for the customer which may create service desk will become unpopular internally. In the other side service desk is for customer representing service provider and customers / end users are really demanding which mean pressure to service desk. As resume of this part you must be brave enough to fight for your customer internally and servant enough when talking to your customer. So service desk is only for strong personalities only then can create correct experience about consumed services. 

2) Committed staff – Who else then service desk team should be committed to their jobs? They are responsible for whole lifecycle of customers incident & requests which are affecting customer (core) businesses, they need to work under high pressure from many sides e.g. customer, internal parties, management. Only when agents are committed to their jobs they do quality work. When you have committed staff to their job you can realize your vision as a leader with your team, never forgot about this part. 

3) Understanding & Involvement into customer business – Even your service desk is committed and courageous enough and even if it is technically skilled you can’t be sure about success. Key element from personnel perspective is business & customer domain knowledge. When service desk agent knows relations to the business he or she can act properly, can correctly evaluate priority and severity, can push in the right moment and from provider perspective knows what better and new solutions offer to the customer. As more is better, it is good when agent can combine experience from more customers and apply patterns between the customers.

4) Level of self-services of service provider – It is important end users use service desk smart. From this perspective self-services are for most of the service users much better option than contacting service desk. This is important part of support services puzzle. Why I should call to service desk to reset my password, create new user account… Are you doing this with the services you are using privately? I want contact service desk really only when I have something extraordinary not “typical request” not to “bother myself” with something easy.

5) Level of automation - Am I repeating myself with self-services? No. Service desk agent must be able to serve you as fast as possible in today’s world there is no need to connect to different consoles and doing things manually in different systems. When talking about 1 tier task (90% of typical calls) majority can be with today’s tools automated and you can get your solution fully working during your few minutes short call thanks to few clicks in service desk tool of the provider. Speed = key element of customer experience with service desk!  

Author: Radim Petras
Photocredit: MIS 

5 Reasons Companies Fail at Customer Service

I read this article by Shep Hyken, a customer service speaker and i couldn't agree more. Just to add that companies also need to listen more to their customers to understand their needs. face to face interactions should be encouraged.

Deliver Excellent Customer Service

Customer service; it is common sense. You may know how to deliver an excellent customer service experience, but do you?

Not long ago a potential client called my office. We discussed the reason he was calling, the problems he’s having and the results he wanted to achieve. He claimed his employees weren’t executing on the “basics.” Within a day I presented an outline of a proposed program. A week later his response was, “We already know how to do that.”

My response was, “Of course you do. Much of customer service is common sense. Unfortunately, it’s not always so common.” What I really wanted to say to him was, “If you really do know how to do it, then why are you so bad at it?” After all, he already admitted that his people weren’t delivering the basics of good service. What I had proposed is exactly what he needed.

You see, it turns out that most companies do know what to do. They just have a hard time executing. So, if so much of customer service is common sense, then why don’t most people do it better?

There are lots of answers, and here are five of them; common sense answers to why common sense customer service fails:

1. Companies don’t take the time to hire the right people.
Hiring right isn’t just for skill or competence. People have to have some aptitude for customer service, the ability to be trained and they must fit into the company’s culture.

2. The company vision, at least for customer service, is not clear.
Many times it’s a vision that is long and wordy. The best customer service vision statement is one sentence or less in length – and employees get it.

3. Companies don’t take the time and effort to train everyone in the company.
Everyone has to be on board and in alignment with customer service vision. That can only come through training and ongoing reinforcement of the vision.

4. People who have roles that don’t interact with the customer don’t believe that customer service applies to them.
This couldn’t be further from the truth. Everyone has a customer, be it the outside customer or the internal customer. Customer service is part of the culture of a company, not a department with customer service reps. Jan Carlson, former president of Scandinavian Airlines once said, “If you aren’t dealing directly with the customer, you probably support someone who does.”

5. The customer service is not consistent.
The inconsistency erodes confidence. The key is to deliver a positive customer service experience that is consistent and predictable.

There are obviously many more reasons companies fail at customer service. To be successful, it starts with the basics, which are common sense.

Source: Shep Hyken
Photocredit: Shep Hyken

A Summary on Social Media Customer Service

Businesses in Nigeria can surely benefit from this report summary:

How savvy is your business at social media customer service?
Gone are the days when people simply call you up to complain. Customers are using social media to contact companies quickly and publicly, especially if they’ve got an issue they want sorting immediately.

This means that, on social media platforms such as Twitter and Facebook, a delayed response or no acknowledgement can be extremely detrimental: it can be a perfect storm of lost customers and bad press.

In short, you can’t afford to ignore the customer service aspect of social media

50% of customers give a company only a week to respond before they stop doing business with them – RightNow Customer Experience Impact Report.

But…

25% of consumers who complain about products on Facebook or Twitter expect a response within 1 hour – American Express, Global Customer Service Barometer.

And you get more face-time with customers

When companies engage and respond to customer service requests over social media, those customers end up spending 20% to 40% more with the company – Bain & Company.

Consumers 18 to 29-years-old are more likely to use a brand’s social media site for customer service interactions (43%) than to check out their marketing activity (23%). – JD Power and Associates’ Social Media Benchmark Study.

Which means you’re able to sell more

Brand advocates drive 33% more sales and 18% more traffic than regular customers – Zuberance.

So companies are pouring more resource into social customer service

Brands have improved their social customer service response rate on Facebook from just 5% in 2011 to 62% in 2013 – Social Bakers.

99% of brands are on Twitter, and 30% of them have a dedicated customer service handle – study by Simpled Measured.

Source: B2C

Photocredit:B2C

Airtel named customer friendly operator of the year

I paid particular attention to this news because last saturday afternoon i was able to make series of airtel - to -airtel calls after doubling my initial credit recharge, using the *234# code.
I don't understand well what the difference between the TalkMore A/c and the 5x A/c really is but i was delighted to find out that after i ran out of credit on the TalkMore A/c, the 5x A/c had about N600 waiting to be used. As if it would disappear if i don't hurriedly use it, i dialled the airtel number again and much to my pleasant surprise it connected.
I already gave Airtel this award on saturday , indeed they have some 'bespoke value-offerings' going on right now.
I don't know if the experience is the same with the other network providers. It would be good to know as it can only be to the advantage of the average Nigerian gsm consumer. http://www.tribune.com.ng/news/news-headlines/item/16634-airtel-named-customer-friendly-operator-of-the-year

While i had to make a payment

I have always been impressed by the service i receive at Gtb but today First bank showed good stuff which i may have taken for granted. Did you ask what happened?

Well, i had need to transfer a certain sum of money from Gtb to a vendor's account in another bank and i was told that it would get there the next day at 4pm ( i got there by 3:00pm). This was not good enough because the vendor will not supply the hardware next day unless he receives the money before 12 noon same day.

Then it occured to me that i could try to do similar transfer from my First bank account and for the good reason of having enough fund in that account to pay up in one installment.

Much to my surprise, i was told that i could do an instant payment transfer (which will get to the vendor immediately).With that i sought to be educated on the difference between the two modes of transfer by the two banks. Then i realised that Gtb was going to do a NEFT (National Electronic Fund Transfer ) while First bank had offered an Instant funds transfer system.

NEFT is an e-payment platform that takes a minimum of 24hrs to be effective because it has to go through clearing process while Instant funds transfer is instant, less than 2mins to be effective. Though one of the benefits of NEFT is that any payment credited to the beneficiary’s account is a cleared item i.e there is no possibility of the payment being reversed for insufficient funds, drawers confirmation, irregular signature or any other reasons associated with cheques, i still beleive that a well rounded service should offer the other options.
Going back to Gtb to find out why i have to do NEFT when i had explained that its urgent, they said it is to encourage customers to embrace internet banking (by use of a 'token'). Then i asked, what if i am a business man who is not internet savvy? And the teller smiled and said i don't look like such a person. Besides, i discovered that there were more charges to a NEFT transfer than there is for an Instant funds transfer.
I think its not a good reason to say customers are being encouraged to use internet banking (at this point i can imagine some of the traders asking their kids for help thereby risking important information).
I like Gtb in other ways but First bank did it for me today.