{"id":51007,"date":"2019-07-09T18:56:00","date_gmt":"2022-10-18T18:56:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.salesforce.com\/?p=51007"},"modified":"2022-10-24T23:01:04","modified_gmt":"2022-10-25T06:01:04","slug":"5-ways-to-assess-and-improve-your-customer-service","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.salesforce.com\/au\/blog\/5-ways-to-assess-and-improve-your-customer-service\/","title":{"rendered":"5 ways to assess and improve your customer service"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Is your customer service meeting expectations? The answer to that question is often revealed only when things are in a negative place and your customers are unhappy. It pays then, to audit your customer\u2019s satisfaction with their service experience before things reach that point. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sometimes, while stuck in traffic or during a particularly busy morning on the road, you might find yourself coming up behind a corporate vehicle with a bumper sticker that reads, \u201cHOW\u2019S MY DRIVING?\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For organisations that want to ensure their fleets aren\u2019t creating a bad impression of the business, it’s one way of showing they\u2019re continually evaluating their own performance. And asking the question \u2013 \u2018how are we doing?\u2019 is a good first step to showing you do care about how potential customers think of your business. But it takes more than asking the general public to figure out if the customer service you\u2019re providing is meeting expectations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Companies usually have a pretty clear indication when their customer service is really poor, of course. When it becomes nearly impossible to keep up with a barrage of criticism on social media, sales start to plummet or they\u2019re increasingly having to offer \u2018make-goods\u2019, senior leaders are usually quick to see how they can improve the way questions and complaints are handled. By the time you reach that point, though, it might already be too late to hang on to valuable relationships or prevent your brand\u2019s reputation from permanent damage.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Instead, the most successful companies have learned to stop, take stock and make changes where necessary based on the volume and variety of customer service issues coming through. They take a good, hard look in the rear-view mirror before continuing on, because they might have missed important markers on their journey.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Determining if your customer service is good enough<\/a> can involve a mixture of formal methods and anecdotal indicators that can be discussed in team meetings. Here are five to consider:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

1. Work out what\u2019s \u2018good enough\u2019 \u00a0<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

There are plenty of customer service metrics to choose from, and a lot of it will come down to what\u2019s common across your industry, the data you can most readily capture and what captures factors that most directly impact business success.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Some of the most popular metrics include Customer Satisfaction (CSAT), Net Promoter Score (NPS) and Customer Effort Score (CES). Even once you\u2019ve settled on one or more of these, though, it\u2019s probably not realistic to think your firm will reach 100% on any of them. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Determine what good looks like and what great looks like, based on factors such as revenue per customer<\/a>, customer retention and customer churn.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

2. Consider a variety of effective feedback loops\u00a0<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Most companies have used some kind of survey to gauge the quality of their customer service at one point or another. This can work if you have a solid email database or a convenient point in the customer journey where buyers will be willing to complete a questionnaire.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In other cases, though, you\u2019ll want to offer simple online forms on your website to gather feedback on your customer service experience, or a hashtag they can use on social media channels. Also think about dedicated phone lines and email addresses, even a physical mailing address \u2013 we\u2019re living in an omni-channel world and 40% of customers won\u2019t do business with a company if they can\u2019t use their preferred channels<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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3. Pay attention to organic feedback<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Even as you find the right metrics and set up channels to get their opinion, there will be customers who share their experiences of their own accord \u2013 good as well as bad. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

It might be a comment to a sales rep the next time they approach a customer about a new product. It might be something said about a company in a public forum, whether on social media or onstage at an industry event. And yes, there are still people in the world who take the time to send email messages or snail mail when they\u2019ve been particularly pleased (or displeased) about the customer service they\u2019ve encountered.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Pay special attention to this unprompted feedback because, much like marketers look at \u201caided and unaided\u201d awareness of a brand, it shows what\u2019s happening organically and may draw attention to the areas in most need of attention. Or, if the customer service is good enough to attract unprompted feedback, celebration.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

4. Test the efficacy of self-service tools<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

A company might develop a solid owner\u2019s manual for a product, or even create a library of documentation and other content online to help their customers help themselves. If most of that goes unused, however, it\u2019s a pretty obvious commentary on how well those resources have been developed or marketed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Self-service is simply another customer service channel. Whether as simple as an online community where customers can brainstorm answers with their peers, or as sophisticated as a chatbot, usage will show how well they trust the firm to empower them with do-it-yourself capabilities. If self-service tools don\u2019t meet the \u2018good enough\u2019 test, it\u2019s going to put more strain on your other customer service resources as well as annoying the 68% of customers who would rather use self-service channels for simple questions or issues<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

5. Make sure you\u2019re capturing referrals<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

If you\u2019re working in a B2B environment, case studies and testimonials are valuable business development resources. If it\u2019s like pulling teeth to get customers to take part, however, the service experience is probably among the reasons. Take a quick look at the number of times you\u2019ve asked for case studies and testimonials and your acceptance rate versus your rejections, and you\u2019ll be able to measure this effectively.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Those in B2C environments can do something similar with referrals. Much like B2B buyers, a willingness – or even eagerness – to encourage friends and family to use the same company is a healthy sign of strong service. This can be captured through simple enquiries about how new customers first heard about you, or by including a question about whether they\u2019d recommend you following the sale of a product or service.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As a final note, consider how technology will make it even easier to assess the quality of customer service. Now that artificial intelligence (AI) capabilities<\/a> have come to service tools, for example, organisations are able to be more proactive to give customers the help they need.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Find the latest customer service insights from ANZ and around the world in our latest State of Service report<\/a>. <\/p>\n\n\n