4 Things Leaders Should Think About This Customer Service Week

This week is National Customer Service Week and organisations across sectors will be celebrating their dedicated employees, recognizing exceptional service and inspiring teams to raise service standards further. Globally events are also taking place to mark the worldwide Customer Service Week in over 60 countries involving hundreds of thousands of individuals.

Customer Service Week is an important reminder of the vital role customer service plays in our businesses and communities and demonstrate to all your stakeholders, including customers, investors and employees that service is at the heart of your business.

Whilst I wholeheartedly support the recognition and celebrations, I also believe there’s more that we can do beyond the events, awards and cakes to make sure we make the most of this week and inspire long term action and impact to support the much-needed international economic growth we all need.

Customer service isn’t just valuable one week a year

Customer service isn’t just important one week a year. In fact, it should be a state of mind all year round and at the heart of a company’s business strategy.

This week offers organisation an opportunity for leaders to reflect on their service offering, strategy and its importance to the growth of the company.

This National Customer Service Week can act as the catalyst for a longer-term change of mindset and direction. Think about how effective your customer service strategy is? How are you using data effectively? What differentiates you from your peers?

The correlation between good customer service, loyalty and ultimately profit is clear. Yet for many organisations customer service remains an afterthought or something to only celebrate one week a year.

Today’s economic environment means there is increased pressure on the bottom line and companies have to work harder to attract and retain customers. This week is a genuine opportunity to reflect on your service proposition and embed long term changes within your organisation that set it up for stability and future growth.

Personalization isn’t always the answer

Personalization has been a buzzword in customer service for years.

I can understand why. The volume and diversity of customers that businesses are trying to reach and serve has never been greater. And with more tools and data available it can be tempting to think that ultra personalization is the answer to retention and customer satisfaction.

However, focusing on personalization can mean organisations try to be all things to all people and simply spread themselves too thinly at the expense of deeper connection, or effectively delivering the brand promise. Often this also comes at significant cost.

Instead, I suggest companies use this week as an opportunity to reflect and ask themselves – Who do we really want to service and how can we serve them best? This should be closely connected to who you are as a business and what your values are.

Ultimately, we cannot always serve everyone equally and to the fullest. So, focus on where your core customers lie, what they care about, whether this is aligned with your business’s values and how you connect with them in a meaningful way.

Good service requires you to be a good customer

Whilst we celebrate and elevate the role of the service workers this week, it’s also important to spotlight the role of the customer themselves.

It’s easy to think that service is all one way, but when you engage with a business or service worker as a customer you are an active participant in that interaction and have an important role to play.

To receive good service you also have to be a good customer. This means being polite, clear in your requests and putting yourself in the shoes of the service worker.

Service is a way of connecting and uniting people, rather than polarizing individuals, but this relies on both parties signing up to the contract. Empathy and connection are crucial, but they need to flow both ways.

This is why we run our Service with Respect campaign, which aims to shed light on the rising abuse of customer service workers and advocates for greater protections for those working across service professions including in hospitality, call centers, shops, public transport or utilities companies.

Take time to listen and understand

And finally, make sure to listen to your customers and colleagues. I read an interesting article this weekend in the Guardian which highlighted Amazon’s decline when it came to customer service. It was once heralded as the star of service, but years of prioritizing growth over customers has eroded trust and service levels. It hasn’t taken time to listen, understand and make changes and this shows.

Rather than just celebrating the best service workers, use the coming days to ask them how you can support them to deliver the best service they can.

Also make sure you are encouraging customers to give you honest feedback. And be prepared to take on board the bad as well as the good.

This week is an opportunity for reflection and taking a step back, but you can only do this properly by really understanding the pressures and experiences of those at the front line of service.

Only with this information can you reshape your strategies, boost employee motivation, improve your service proposition for your customers and see real ROI.