My last article discussed the idea of creating a “Customer Board of Directors” from your community of customers. This article focuses on creating a “Customer Service Board of Directors.” The difference between the two is the word “service.” The last article was more about engaging a community of your customers. This is about bringing in people from the inside of your company. That said, they are both about customer service. Another difference is that the members of the Customer Service Board may be from your company as well as from the outside. And, the people you ask to join from outside of your company may not necessarily be one of your customers.
To start with, you will want to build a board from management and leaders who focus on customer service. You will also want to bring in some front-liners who deal directly with customers.
Even though the focus is internal, it will help to bring in people from the outside. These are not your customers. You may want to find someone from a company who is recognized for customer service. This can be any type and any size of business. You can also bring in customer service experts or consultants. You may have to pay them for their time, just as you might any other outside member of a typical board of directors. Having an outsider’s perspective, especially if they have expertise or experience in customer service, could be a huge benefit to the board, as well as your company.
You want the board to be more than a creative spark to your customer service. That by itself would make the board a worthwhile investment of time and energy. The real payoff will come when you see some type of change or improvement in your company. So, consider some type of measurement to start. You will need to have a starting point and benchmarks to plot the progress of the board’s suggestions.
This board can have a powerful impact on your company. Let this customer service savvy group of people brainstorm your current problems and opportunities. Let them come up with ideas and flush them out for relevancy. They will become your think-tank and should deliver ideas that range from simple to complex. But, it is not their job to implement.
Let this board think strategically and not get bogged down in the tactics of implementation. That will be handed off to a group of people that will become the task force that gets the job done. A big part of the board members’ fulfillment will come from seeing that the time they spend together is benefiting the organization. Each time they meet they should be brought up to date on how their ideas are working – or not working.
Creating a customer service board of directors that meets on a regular basis may be one of the strategies to keep your focus on the customer.