Hardly a day goes by without me reading another story about someone having had a rotten customer service experience. (You only have to have the misfortune to fly through British Airways’ new Terminal 5 to know exactly what I mean.) And the inductive logic that almost invariably follows about how important it is to improve customer service. And how that will help differentiate you in a recession. Sounds sensible doesn’t it? But is it really?<\/p>\n
The problem with anecdotal evidence like this is that it is laden with cognitive biases – recency bias, confirmation bias, impact bias, you name it. What is needed is more robust research that looks at the broader picture and tries to discount these biases through an appropriate survey design.<\/p>\n
Fortunately, Accenture has just done exactly that with their 2008 Customer Satisfaction Survey<\/a><\/b>. Their findings are broadly in line with the received wisdom, in particular that:<\/p>\n But the answer isn’t just to blindly increase customer service levels and hope for the best. That would be unconscionable in these cash-strapped times. Much better is to understand:<\/p>\n This provides a simple foundation for targeting customer service improvements where they will do the most good for your best customers and therefore, for you as well. Remember, all customers are not the same, so don’t treat them the same. Of course, it goes without saying that you shouldn’t treat customers badly. You only have to look at the recent Sprint 1,000 disaster<\/a><\/b> to see where that leads.<\/p>\n What do you think? Are you targeting customer service where it will have the biggest impact? Or are you still spraying and praying?<\/p>\n Post a comment or email me at graham(dot)hill(at)web(dot)de to get the conversation going.<\/p>\n Graham Hill Further Reading:<\/p>\n Accenture, 2008 Customer Satisfaction Survey<\/a><\/b><\/p>\n\n
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