Customer satisfaction as a function of managing customer expectations

More often than not poor customer satisfaction is a result of mis-managed customer expectations. Most vendors tend to over promise and under deliver. However, by following some guidelines this can be avoided.

Understand customer pain points
Before proposing any solutions the vendor should try to understand the customer’s pain points. These might be issues gating customer progress. While trying to understand these issues you should constantly validate and clarify the issues with the customer. This can be done by asking open-ended questions and letting the customer vent and describe their issues. You should be in careful listening mode at this time.

Be upfront with customers
Customers can see through vendors who are trying to sugar coat things or set wrong expectations with them. The best policy is to be upfront with the customer. Be honest in dates for deliverables and any other commitments that you might have. Setting the right expectations and delivering what you say you will deliver goes a long way in customer satisfaction.

Put a process in place to track issues
Putting a process in place helps have control over the customer deployment/support process.
Ask customers to use your tracking system to log issues if you have one. Assign owners both externally and internally and also put timelines on when those issues will be fixed. If reports can be generated from time to time, they should be circulated to key individuals at the customer and within your organization.

Have regular status meetings
You will be amazed at how things will distort and change if time elapses between regular meetings. Make sure you have regular status meetings to get updates from both sides. Invite key individuals who understand the issues and hold responsibility in getting the task done. Basically, these meetings keep the project on track. Also poll the customer if they are happy with the support in these meetings. Ask them why if they are not.

Put an escalation mechanism in place
For issues that demand special or urgent attention have a clear path for escalation. There should be no ambiguity in the customer's mind as to what this path is. Failure to do so unnecessarily results in escalations to upper management levels which in reality are not needed. This leads to thrashing and lot of wasted time.

Following these guidelines will result in better customer satisfaction.

Customer service and corporate culture – is support an afterthought?

What does it take for customer support to be successful within an organization? Success as measured by customers providing good feedback to the vendor and also fewer escalations.

Most organizations focus on topline growth ie selling. How much effort is spent into supporting the customer after the sale occurs, is often de-emphasized and ignored. Sales is typically incentivized by bringing in the money. They have little or no interest in how the product is deployed or supported afterwards until the time a new deal could be crafted at that customer. That is just a reality of life.

So what does it take to foster a corporate culture that does not ignore support at any time.

What the CEO thinks of support?
The attitude at the top will inevitably permeate the organization.
Is the attitude that of drive-by selling? Is the attitude to hand hold customers through all phases of association – sales, deployment?
Are customers viewed as complainers and whiners who constantly ask for more and don’t pay enough? If that is the case the same culture will be reflected in dealings at a much lower level. It will promote a culture of mediocrity & customer dissatisfaction that will sooner or later impact sales.

What are employees measured on?
As part of their management objectives, are employees rewarded for selling and not supporting? Is support considered the “dirty work” while sales, marketing and R&D get to work on the fun stuff? This will create a culture where most employees will gravitate towards jobs associated with selling because that is where the glory will be. Great emphasis should be given to promoting/rewarding actions that are representative of supporting customers well.

Attitude towards the customer
Are customer queries/issues brushed off as meaningless complaints? Is it “their” problem not “ours”? Is the customer “stupid” that s/he can’t understand something so “simple”?
Do solutions to customer problems become “internal battles” between warring factions of the company? Do you always over promise and under deliver? All these questions reek of a “we don’t care about you” attitude towards the customer. From the customer point of view you are viewed as one company. Internal excuses should not be their problem. It is very important to listen to customers, understand the issue, take full ownership of it and finally fix the issue. One key metric people forget is closing the loop with the customer whether they are satisfied with the fix.

Internal communication
Are support agents clear on the go-to personnel and processes they need internally to support a customer well. Is ownership and access to subject matter experts (SMEs) defined well.? Is there clarity on the escalation process? Is there enough teamwork that issues don’t “fall through the cracks” and the problem solving flow is maintained? If not, this will result in “thrashing” of issues. It will also be inefficient and result in delayed response times, poor quality responses leading to customer unhappiness.

Accountability
What happens if the customer is not happy with support in their account? How does the company deal with someone who “dropped the ball”? Corporations should constantly monitor the provision of support to customers by doing internal audits. This could be in the form of quick evaluations of workload and quality of responses as well as feedback loops from customers. Constant effort should be spent to purge non-performers from the system at regular intervals.

Tracking
Does the company have good ways to track how and when customers are supported? Investment in some good tracking systems generally pays for itself over time. It enables management to do fact-based analysis by looking at trends rather than “gut” feel about issues. Does your corporation regard this as an “unnecessary expense”? That might reflect a reactive culture.

Hiring
People need to have the right mindset to help people solve issues. This is a combination of technical and soft skills. As part of the interview process it should be made sure that the candidate is evaluated for both these skills. As part of the corporate culture you should strike a balance between the two when hiring.

Corporations should emphasize promoting a culture where great customer service is encouraged by taking these factors into account.