“Customer service is a leadership issue,” said author and CX consultant Micah Solomon in a 2018 Forbes article. “It requires involvement from company leaders and managers, including the support (both philosophically and in the allocation of resources) of the C-Suite.”
We couldn’t agree more! In fact, in a past newsletter Associate Alan MacNaugton shared similar insights.
“The primary functions of any business are to get customers and keep them,” he said. “While getting customers is primarily the job of sales and marketing personnel, KEEPING those customers is the responsibility of EVERYONE in the organization, from those involved in producing the product or delivering the service, quality assurance, customer service, technical support, credit and collections, the shipping team, right through to the CEO.”
While there are a range of tools you might leverage to measure and improve your customer service and the customer experience (CX), such as NPS, Medallia, etc., here are five important questions incorporated from Mr. Solomon’s article that you might consider to ensure that your internal efforts are supporting a customer service / customer-centric culture.
- Has leadership allocated the resources necessary for great customer service?
- Has leadership empowered frontline customer service employees so they can make the pro-customer decisions needed to provide great service in unexpected circumstances?
- Are Customer Success or support personnel required to rigidly adhere to scripts and policies that fail to provide a genuine customer experience?
- Are employee suggestions or initiatives for providing high-levels of customer care encouraged and evaluated with an open mind?
- Has leadership invested in training and ongoing coaching for customer-facing team members – and have they attended that training themselves?