A customer service oriented company is a business that views and treats its customers as the most important assets. They strive to make their customers happy, offer great service and create long term relationships.
Companies with excellent customer service are obsessed with their customers and customer experience. They understand that this is the only way they can compete in a world where products are becoming commoditized.
In addition, they take customer service very seriously by making it part of their culture. They understand that this is not a department but a way of thinking and acting.
Companies rarely hire people to work in customer service. They hire people to do something else and then assign them to customer service.
This is one of the most important differences between a company that is merely “customer-oriented” and one that is truly customer-service oriented.
In companies that are merely “customer-oriented,” customer service is a job you get assigned after you’ve proven yourself incapable of doing anything else. In companies that are truly “customer-service oriented,” it’s a chance to prove yourself capable of a lot more. The latter are the ones that take care of their employees so they can take care of their customers.
The most customer-oriented companies all have one thing in common: they empower their employees to solve customers’ problems. In fact, a recent study shows that the direct relationship between employee empowerment and customer loyalty is stronger than the correlation between customer satisfaction and loyalty.
So how do companies enable employees to serve customers better? To start, they create an environment in which employees feel valued and can grow. They also enable their teams at the point of interaction by giving them access to customer information and insights, putting tools at their fingertips, and giving them the freedom to act on behalf of the customer.
Another way companies supercharge customer service is by mapping out every step of the customer journey. When companies make it a priority to understand their customers’ experiences, they can identify opportunities for improvement, as well as areas where their company excels.
The best way for companies to understand the customer experience is through feedback from both employees and customers. By proactively surveying customers at different points along the journey, service leaders can identify problem areas that need attention, as well as recognize moments where an employee’s actions really made an impact on the customer relationship.
Why Customer Service Orientation is important?
Customer service orientation is important. Because the market is becoming increasingly competitive and the level of customer service that you offer can be a key differentiator between you, your competitors and the customer’s perception of your company.
The fact is that most companies are very similar. They may offer similar products at similar prices and with similar terms. So how do you make sure that your business stands out from the crowd? How do you make sure that your business gets chosen ahead of any other?
The answer lies in offering a good level of customer service. By understanding what the customer wants, by being available to help solve their problems and by making it easy for them to do business with you, you can create a competitive advantage for yourself over your competitors.
The good news is that many businesses don’t get this right. Many businesses treat their customers in an indifferent way without a thought for improving their customer service orientation. This leaves a gap in the market for those who are prepared to do things differently.
The problem with customer service orientation is that it’s hard to keep it up. It takes a lot of time and effort to convince people to trust you, and it takes a lot of time and effort to keep your promises. So the question is how to minimize the amount of work you have to do.
There are two ways to approach this: the right way, and the easier way. The right way is to look at what people want and what they expect and meet their expectations before they develop them. The easier way is to lie.
Lying to get customers is like any other kind of lying; it’s short term gain at long term risk. If you lie about a product or a service and get away with it once, you may be able to do it again. But if you get caught, you lose all your credibility, not just on that issue but forevermore. And if your lies are big enough, or frequent enough, sooner or later someone will catch you in one. Sooner or later someone will tell the truth about what you’re doing, and at that point, all your credibility vanishes overnight.
6 Habits of Customer Service Oriented Companies
- Take an ‘outside-in’ approach
In order to be successful in your customer service efforts, you must first understand your customers and the problems they are attempting to solve. What are their interests? What challenges do they face? How will you help them?
- Understand the customer across the lifecycle
It’s important to consider your relationship with customers as a whole, from initial contact through feedback and follow-up. Understanding the full picture of your interactions with customers – both individually and overall – will help you develop and maintain a great relationship with them.
- Empower employees at the point of interaction
Great customer service organizations empower their employees to make decisions at the point of interaction with customers. By empowering employees, these companies remove roadblocks and eliminate the need for customers to navigate layers of bureaucracy before they get what they want.
- Map out their journey
A customer’s experience is not limited to their interactions with staff, so the most successful organizations map out the entire buying process and identify potential pain points or places where the customer could potentially get stuck in a perpetual loop of frustration. Once these points are identified, companies can take steps to ensure that all friction points are removed from the customer’s journey.
- Test your tools
All of these tools let you communicate with customers quickly and directly, but if you are making the wrong choices (or forgetting to look at them) then all of your efforts will be wasted.
- Personalize the experience
Whether you’re responding over Twitter or email, don’t just rely on canned responses and templates. Generic answers don’t encourage loyalty or repeat business. Get specific with each response, and make sure you’re addressing the customer’s individual needs and concerns.
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