Everyone makes mistakes once in a while, but for some reason, perhaps because everyone thinks they know a lot about customer service, there’s a lot of false information spread. The #custserv chat on Twitter, which is held once a week, always contains both 1) bad information, and 2) superficial and vacuous “shoulds” from people who clearly don’t have any involvement in running a business of any significant size.
There’s a portion of “customer service experts who believe that measuring/metrics isn’t important for improving customer service. It isn’t surprising that it’s often the same people who believe that metrics and looking at return on investment isn’t important for social media either. It’s the ultimate cop-out and recipe for business disaster.
Kate Nasser, as part of the #custserv chat tweeted the following:
Metrics don’t create great service. They measure great service that you first create! ~Kate Nasser
It’s actually pretty compelling, a kind of common sense thinking that is prevalent on social media. And, it’s wrong. A further “and”, is that it demonstrates that without some fundamental background knowledge, even the “experts” cannot be trusted to understand what they are doing, let alone suggest what you should be doing with your business. Common sense is sometimes very very wrong.
Evidence
The main evidence that exists that disproves Kate’s statement comes from looking at behavior in organizations, and it’s been shown over and over that when you measure something in an organization the thing that you measure changes, and will usually “improve”. It’s called The Hawthorne Effect and knowledge about it goes back to the 1920’s. While there is always some disagreement about single studies per se, there is no disagreement that the simple act of measuring something (and paying attention to it) alters what you are measuring.
So, Metrics DO create great service, or at least can certainly be a part of the initiative.
In addition we know much more. We know that when the senior decision-makers at a company announce that certain things will be measured, it begins the process of altering both the values and culture of the organization. Employee’s take their cues from what senior people DO, and when executives start to measure, employees understand “THIS IS IMPORTANT!” That’s why measuring AND acting upon the measurements is a critical component of creating a new culture.
This is really basic knowledge about both organizations and creating a customer service culture, so it’s a bit perplexing how Ms. Nasser wouldn’t know this. Frankly, it’s a bit scary.
There’s even more. We (well, Psychologists) understand that measurement is a critical aspect of changing personal behavior too. That’s why in many programs for weight loss and smoking cessation, the first step is to start measuring. It’s often the case, no surprise here, that the simple act of measuring results in some weight loss or reduction in smoking. Not all the time, but enough that it’s a basic component in these programs.
Finally, on the more arcane side, there’s Physics. It’s long been understood that the observation of a phenomenon alters the phenomenon, and of course that includes measurement. Just really neat stuff if you ever want to take a look at some of the Quantum Physics material that is written for lay people.
Conclusion
There’s really no question on this. Metrics, and measurement DO create great service, and they contribute to customer service improvement EVEN if you don’t do much else. Of course, that’s not what you want to do. You want to measure and change things in the organization, but metrics ARE important organizationally.
Now to the issue of bad information. While working on the basis of common sense and personal experience provides some important information, it is simply NOT enough to qualify one to a) offer advice on a paid basis, or b) to help the givers of advice understand what they do NOT know. I think that’s the case here. It’s not that the information I’ve outlined above is hard to find, but if one starts with a position, and doesn’t realize where one is ignorant, it’s hard to ask the right questions.
That often happens in a world where everyone can have an opinions and state it as fact. Common sense is NOT enough. If you are someone trying to make a living in customer service by helping companies you have an ethical obligation to be constantly trying to DISPROVE your own views so you can challenge yourself and offer the best services possible to your clients. That includes what you say on social media, too, on an unpaid basis.
