Does the channel or business model make any difference to the level of acceptable customer service?

Jeremy writes that online stores should not bother with an extensive customer support service and offer a simple return service only. I.e. if you don’t like it, send it back.

In my opinion, it depends on a number of factors…

• How competitive is the market?
• Is your business model cut price self service or luxury?
• Is the item a low value commodity or a high value purchase?
• What channel are you using for the sale?
• Are you hoping for an ongoing customer relationship?

In the case of an online store - the majority of the work involved in achieving the sale and completing the order is automated. The customer can browse the store without a member of staff checking whether they need help or if they are shoplifting. Detailed product information and even reviews or customer feedback is available to help the customer with the decision. The purchase processing is automated, confirmation emails and estimated delivery dates or tracking can be automated. And depending on the nature and set-up, much of the logistics can be automated.

So when customer has a query - I would be inclined to agree with Jeremy - it may be simpler to continue the theme. With an automatically generated returns slip and refund procedure.

On the other hand - a retail store would need to staff a store with a number of people to complete a sale, so whereas a customer services team would need to be specifically employed if you wanted to offer support for an online sale, the existing retail staff needed for the original sale could help with queries - as long as they were trained correctly.

The customer expects different service levels based on the positioning of your brand - in his podcast, Steve Humphrey describes the decision making process and different levels of service required depending on the nature of the purchase. He uses the comparison of buying at Primark compared to Prada.

Customers also expect different service levels if buying a high value product - for example a car. Even in the case of online ordering, you would expect a certain amount of aftersales service.

Marks and Spencer offered a no quibble exchange policy regardless of how long ago the purchase was made, this was promoted as a selling point in the past.

This has now changed to a 90 day return policy for unwanted goods - presumably to reduce exploitation and cut costs.

Jason from good customer services blog suggests that the level of service you provide in retail stores depends also on your behaviour. I would agree that sales staff are likely to be happier to go the extra mile for polite customers.

Let me know your experiences -

• Have you been surprised by exceptionally good or bad service?
• Do you think companies should be able to get away with low customer service if they offer a lower priced product?
• Would a return only policy please you or is it not enough?
  
• What customer service do you offer?
• Have you seen examples of customers exploiting good customer service?

Listen to Steve’s Marketing podcast using this link - I would recommend episode 13 The decision making process, and 7 The Marketing Mix and the scope of Marketing.

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I read an excellent example of how good customer service training can change the outcome of a bad customer experience. The example was written on the Marketing Beyond Blog, under ‘retail training’.

He describes situation 1 where the customer service assistant goes through the motions of returning a phone and cancelling his contract with limited conversation; and situation 2 where the assistant delves deeper, to understand the reasons behind the return and suggest possible solutions.

The good service described is hypothetical, but if you were faced with the second situation, I’m sure you would agree that he’s right in saying you would give the network another try.

It is becoming more common, particularly in telecoms to be transferred to the ‘retention department’ when you call to cancel a service. It demonstrates how important it is to train staff well, and ensure they are aware of service improvements, and product benefits.

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• Make sure you approach every customer
• Build rapport – be open and friendly, ask questions like - ‘how are you feeling today’ or ‘what is the weather like outside’.
• Ask open questions (these are, who, what, why, where, when and how - these types of questions give you more information than a yes or no answer) to identify the customer’s needs.
• Once you identified the customer’s needs, match them to the product using both a feature and a benefit, e.g. – ‘keeping the children’s uniforms clean must be a problem for you, with this model, it as a daily wash cycle, you can put the children’s uniform in when they get home from school and they will be washed within a half hour, this will save you both time and money’
•  Know what your available stock is – use lost leaders (these are products that are low priced and well advertised products that bring the customer through the door) as a sell up tool, this gives the customer a superior product and it means more money in the till for your store.
• Ask for the sale – don’t be afraid to close the sale, ask the customer ‘when would you like this delivered’ (this option also gives you an add on sale too) – if they come up with an objection, e.g. ‘I want to take it with me’ – you say ‘great, no problem, we have one in stock, you can take it away today’.
• Customers may say ‘I want to have a look around’ – you  can reply with, ‘To save you the time having to look around, we check our prices every week to make sure we are competitive and if you do happen to see it cheaper elsewhere, we will beat the price’ If the customer still chooses to ‘look round’ you may still get the sale, the customer will more than likely come back to you to buy the product, if you have built a good rapport with them.

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Call centres throughout the UK are one of the busiest working environments and yet they are also very high on the list when it comes to training needs. Because the people employed in the call centres are coming into contact with the general public it is essential that their training needs are identified and then met by good quality and well delivered training courses that actually provide the skill sets required. Beyond The Box Ltd was commissioned by Comet to identify the training needs of its call centre staff and then to design a training programme that would cover all three levels of sales staff expertise – entry level, mid level and expert level.

Before designing the course Christine Knott, managing director of Beyond The Box, spent time researching at Comet. She observed all the various departments of the call centre, identifying the content for the modules of the training programme and how it should be designed. The overall learning programme had to link to Comets’ promotional and development programme with all levels needing to be completed by members of staff before the training course could be completed.

Each of the levels designed by Beyond The Box used a modular format with up to six modules per level for both customer care and sales. Each module has been designed for a Comet trainer to deliver either a group training session or a one to one training session and it also provides an option where the trainer can monitor the employee in a self study programme.

To end each module the delegate has to deliver an action plan on how they intend to implement their new learning on a daily basis. This allows Comet trainers to identify whether all key aspects of the training have been understood and whether the delegate is taking the correct elements of the training into the daily tasks that they have to perform.

Commenting on the training course Beyond The Box designed, Christine Knott said, “It was important the course design was able to deliver training in short modules. The time constraints on call centre staff is particularly restrictive when it comes to training so the modules had to deliver the required elements in short, snappy bursts that would be retained by all the delegates, no matter what level they were at. The research we carried out initially was key to this. It enabled us to understand the restrictions of the training programme and how the learning would need to be implemented on a daily basis.”

Julie Simpson, Training and Development Manager at the Comet Customer Information Centre said, “We are delighted with the programme that Beyond The Box designed for us. We use our own in-house trainers to deliver the solution provided by Christine and her team and all of our staff have completed different elements of the training. It was important to us that the training programme reflected our promotional and development programme and this modulated approach allows us to do exactly that whilst also monitoring all our staff in terms of further training requirements.”

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