Recession - is not a time to stop improving
the customer service- it is time to continue and be ahead of the
competition!
Overview of the research conducted in Lithuania: "How the
companies are changing their customer service management practices
due to economical recession?"
SPECT-DIVE (Lithuanian branch of DIVE Group) together with AKA
(National Customer Service Association) have conducted a special
research at national level in Lithuania in the beginning of this
year. It was designed to analyze how different sector companies
are changing their customer service management practices due to
economical recession. The outcome of the research is that in the
long term perspective the customer service quality will decline
and companies will loose the input of nearly ten years as they
are cutting the costs on main customer service improvement tools
such as personnel training, financial motivation and measurement
(mostly Mystery Shopping). It proofs, that there is still a big
lack of understanding that customer service management represents
not only a cost, but an investment leading to competitive advantage
and that refusal of systematic approach towards customer service
management can result in bigger losses in the future, not only
monetary, but also non-monetary like company image, customer satisfaction
and loyalty.
1 scheme. What is your customer service improvement strategy
for 2009?
2 scheme. What actions will you take while cutting the customer
service costs?
Summary of main findings and conclusions of the conducted research:
-
Customer service management costs are being drastically cut
(67% of companies are cutting, 33% are not cutting)
-
In order to cut costs companies are mostly moving from outsource
to internal resources and significant personnel redundancies
o Comment of author: If companies will be able to sustain
same level of professionalism while using internal recourse
(which is significantly reduced in quantity as well) - effects
after recession is over can be less harmful, but experience
shows that internal people can not be professionals in everything
- that is exactly why specialized companies are existing in
each market
-
Mostly companies are cutting costs by refusing (i.e. total
stop of using) of main customer service improvement tools
like personnel development (training, attending conferences,
financial motivation systems) and measurement (mostly Mystery
Shopping)
-
Comment of author:
These named tools are extremely important in order to
sustain the systematic customer service management and
also are hard to replace with internal recourse professionally
-
Companies mainly focus and move to usage of tools that are
possible to execute with internal resource and require smaller
investment at a time: creation and implementation of SOP (standard
of performance), complaint/praise management, internal and
non-anonymous audits
-
Comment of author:
These named tools are needed to use - but used solely
without full measurement and personnel development tools,
most likely will not guarantee the expected results
-
Companies underestimate and do not take advantage to use
cheaper but still effective personnel development tools that
actually require quite reasonable and affordable investment
or are possible to execute with internal recourse, e.g. establishing
self-development and self-training systems, individual development
(coaching) done by middle level management, online tools (training,
testing, etc.)
-
Comment of author:
These tools usually require motivated and skilled internal
recourse people, a bit more internal initiative and patience-
but if used correctly can bring sufficient development
results and replace classical training and seminars
Main recommendations for companies to focus and think about
before they jump into drastic cost cutting in customer service
quality management tools:
-
If you choose to use internal recourse instead of outsource
- you have to be careful and put enough attention to the professionalism
of applied tools (use outsourced consulting at least), especially
in Mystery Shopping - because if done unprofessionally it
can harm more then help; by doing it unprofessionally you
risk with all the input of Mystery Shopping program you have
achieved so far
-
Main goal is to maintain the systematic use of tools - i.e.
to maintain the system of steps: measure -> develop -> motivate
-> measure... When you need to cut costs - then cut on quantities,
try to be more efficient in each step rather then refuse of
one step totally
-
Focus on quality of the services you still choose to outsource
- try to get the value for money
-
Be flexible, diversify, try innovative personnel development
tools like self-development, online solutions, but do no refuse
this important customer service quality management system
step totally
-
High quality customer service is a way to differentiate and
win the competition now, during economical recession, and
accomplish even more after it will be over! So continue and
be ahead!
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