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Your Customers want to know they are Appreciated By Ed Romson, CEO, Rocair Corporation This is the first of a continuing series of articles for I I hope to be able to provide you, the reader, with something to think about regarding Customer Care. I am based in the United States and that will, of course, give these articles a particular viewpoint. I have worked in Customer Care in many different countries, however and that experience has allowed me to form what I think is a global approach to assisting customers. Perhaps I should introduce myself. You may have seen some mention of me in this publication before. My name is Ed Romson, and I am President and CEO of Rocair Corporation (www.rocair.com). Rocair Corporation is a company specializing in Customer Care and International Development. I have been working in the customer support field for over twenty years. I have held positions in the field, and in management; in call centers and in headquarters organizations that develop and implement strategy. I've worked for companies large and small, established and start-up. I have traveled and worked in Latin America, North America, Europe, Asia, Japan and Africa. My current work has allowed me to visit Buenos Aries several times to work with companies there, and as a visiting instructor for the Universidad de Belgrano in the Postgraduate Course for Call Center Management. My work in many countries over the years has led me to form some basic beliefs about global business and how customers should be treated. In this first article, I'd like to share some of those thoughts with you. In hard economic times, like many countries are facing now, it becomes easy to blame others for the problems that we are facing. There is enough blame to go around, but I have found that the most productive practice is to try to understand the present situation and to discover ways to take advantage of the conditions. As a Porteño friend of mine says, "out of crisis, comes opportunity". This kind of attitude was also addressed by Maximiliano Poter and Erika Consenza in the article "Cómo aprovechar lo positive". If you look at the present economic crisis in MercoSur, it is not difficult to see many problems. Businesses are being forced to make many cuts. Customer service and support is often the first area to be chosen as a target for cuts. That is often because the cost is high and many company executives do not see the immediate value of customer care. It does not bring in direct revenue. On the contrary, good customer care, or improving poor customer care, can actually be the economic savoir for some companies. We know that it is more expensive to get a new customer than to keep an existing customer. Studies show that a five percent improvement in customer retention improves profitability by 25 to 100% (Bain & Co.) and that cutting customer defections by just five percent has the effect of boosting profits between 25% and 95%. (Harvard Business Review). By improving the way you treat your customers, you keep your existing customers. You can also use this increase in customer service as a differentiator over your closest competitors. Give your customers more than they expect, more than they get from your competitor, and they will reward you for it. This does not need to be expensive. By paying attention to what your customers are saying, you can improve your service and product; sometimes at very little cost. Over the next few articles I will be exploring some of the ways to do this. Before I close for this month, I should address a concern that readers may have when reading these thoughts. Some may say, "What you are talking about is fine strategy for the United States, but this is Argentina, and in our present conditions, it will not work here!" I do not agree. I have worked in many countries and I have dealt with many cultures, sometimes under very difficult economic circumstances (in Asia, after their IMF crisis). What I have discovered is that the core of customer care is the same all over the world. The basic things that customers want do not change from country to country. Customers want to know that their business is appreciated, they want someone to listen to them, and they want quick and accurate responses to their inquiries. What is different from place to place is the "veneer" that is placed over the core ideas. How do your customers expect those core concepts to be presented? Perhaps that means answering the telephone quickly. Perhaps it means knowing what the customer ordered, and having all the information about that customer available to your employees who are handling the contacts. Your customers will tell you what they expect. You just have to listen to them. We will be discussing this in future articles, as well. © Copyright Rocair Corporation. All rights reserved. |
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