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