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Leading customer service for a company is much more than just handling “Where is my order?” calls.  Customer service is a tremendous opportunity to extend (or derail) the company’s brand on every call – and much, much more.

The following list gives an idea of how wide and encompassing the customer service role can and should be.  The leader who nails this list has a chance to really serve the organization – to extend the brand, to responsibly contribute to profitability, and to help steer the company.

Because more often than not the most interaction a customer has with a company is with the customer service team, the service team usually has the most impact on the public opinion – the brand – of the company.  It’s one of the most critical roles in the company.

The priority should change based on the needs and vision of the company.

  1. Protect/build the brand on every call.
  2. Create and curate knowledge – an incredibly valuable company asset; knowledge feeds all systems.
  3. Increase profitability by reducing service cost as a percentage of revenue.
  4. Sales creation/retention opportunities (especially with continuity sales).
  5. Monitor public sentiment via social media.
  6. Executive KPI (key performance indicators) reporting.
  7. Crisis management/early warning mechanism (call drivers, risks).
  8. Be a positive part of the company’s culture (service is often one of the largest teams).
  9. Create a career ladder for people.  Agent turnover is a headwind, reduce it by creating a growth path.
  10. Create bench strength (a highly qualified hiring pool) for the organization.
  11. Use the knowledge asset to create robust training/agent onboarding.   New hires need to be impressed too.
  12. Create scalable, responsive systems so customers can self serve on their device,  Reduce contacts/costs.
  13. Be a SME in IT systems; rarely does anyone know as much about the order management systems/ERP.
  14. Workforce management – establish service level commitments, service levels, for every channel.