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We often look at customer service from the perspective of things we can do to improve the customer experience – things like service training for employees, new ways to pay or pay, and techniques for completing a service call. But what about the opposite? What can we remove or change from our processes, procedures and operations to improve the customer experience?
Take a retail company for example. After shopping for a while, you arrive at the checkout and the cashier asks, “Did you find everything you were looking for?” While this seems harmless and is common in almost every retail transaction, it is helpful for customer service ? Is this the right question, in the right context and at the right time?
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Consider the question further. For example, when you check out at a large retailer, your examiner won’t be able to respond to the question they asked. If you said, “No, I couldn’t find X, Y, and Z,” then what can you do? You can use the intercom to call someone else and ask them to repeat your needs. They then have to set out to find these items. If they decide to check to see if they are in stock first, you will have to wait for them to determine whether they are available or not and then wait for them to pick it up. The payment process is interrupted, if not derailed.
Additionally, you have a number of people behind you. If you stop asking this question and this process begins, the other customers will now be delayed and their checkout process will be interrupted. Your customer experience is compromised. Alternatively, you might mention that you couldn’t find the brand of shampoo you were looking for and the cashier might simply respond with a shrug or “That’s too bad, I’ll tell my manager” as she’s faced with a problem again long queue of customers and have no method or mechanisms to report this. The likely scenario is that the information never reaches the manager.
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The product may have been out of stock. Maybe the store doesn’t carry it at all. But once you’re at the checkout, you can’t immediately tell what the case is, nor whether the store carries alternative products that might meet the customer’s needs. Additionally, there is no way for the store to identify and track these potentially repeat requests and determine how to add these items to the store’s shelves. Basically it’s a pretty useless question. This example, among many other examples of terrible customer service habits that have become autopilot activities, is one of those that you can easily ditch for free and dramatically improve the customer experience.
Consider the litany of other useless questions and actions we take in the spirit of “great customer service.” For example, say: “Your call is important to us – we will be with you shortly.” Or you can discuss on the phone all the ways customers can pay a bill online while they are waiting on the phone for a representative because they have a question have your invoice. Or when a customer gives their information to an automated phone system and simply gives the same information again to a living human.
Instead of examining all the things you can add to make the service experience great, start by identifying the things you can do without. Why would a cashier ask a customer if they found everything they needed? It might be better to have someone on the floor at the checkouts asking customers if they’ve found everything they need before they start the checkout process. Instead of telling your customers that their call is important, don’t say it at all. Inform them of the actual waiting time, with the option of a callback at a time of your choosing.
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Thinking about what can be removed allows us to focus on customers’ obstacles and frustrations, which likely include actions that we may do automatically because that’s how they’ve always been done. By looking at what steps and elements we can remove from the customer experience, we can also focus on making the things that matter even better. We are not distracted or caught up in protocol-driven platitudes, but rather in actions and behaviors that have real, utilitarian impact. By eliminating routine responses to customer needs, we enable our employees to become more authentic, have scope for problem-solving, and find creative ways to impress and delight.
In short, we need to empower customer service agents to think actively and provide them with the tools and opportunities to act based on their real-world observations and insights. We need to enable employees to identify actions that aren’t working or don’t add value and throw them in the trash. We need to pay attention not only to what we believe is polite, but also to what statement or action is most beneficial in the customer context. By using the simple trick of eliminating actions that aren’t useful to customers, we can make the other things we do to deliver a great experience shine brighter.