Customer Service at a Crossroads: What You Do Next to Improve Performance Will Determine Your Company's Destiny

By consistently delivering information about products, services and information to customer service agents, based on their individual skill levels—at the right time in the right way, organizations are also delivering a consistent, clear understanding of corporate objectives and vision. The result: thousands of customer interactions that delight the customer and improve retention as well as corporate profitability. Optimizing agent performance can quickly deliver incredible returns beyond customer loyalty. That is what this book is all about.

INTRODUCTION Survival for today s major corporations depends on the ability to maintain revenue growth and a satisfied customer base. Most large companies generate the majority of their revenue (80%) from existing customers. While the numbers vary, experts agree that it costs more to attract a new customer than to keep an existing one.

After years of consolidation and growth through mergers and acquisitions, large companies, in mature industries, are unable to maintain growth. In addition, entering untapped markets for new meaningful growth is high risk and has become increasingly difficult. As a result, existing customers are not only the most significant and profitable revenue source, but they represent the best opportunity for future growth and continued success and survival. This is one of the most fundamental principles of business. So what s the big deal, you ask?

Here it is. Ironically, the most neglected organization in the company has been charged with managing its most valuable asset its customers. The heritage of customer service and the customer service center makes it the least likely nominee to lead business strategy. The organization has never been considered strategic in the past and it has suffered through years of commensurate under investment. That is all about to change.

In response to a major competitive threat from Japanese manufacturing, W. Edwards Deming authored a book called Out of The Crisis. The book was written as a call to action for American companies to adopt a radical new model for manufacturing or risk becoming extinct. The work of Deming and others became the catalyst for a major transformation in business and is the foundation of all modern manufacturing processes.

Today, on the shop floor of the information economy the customer service center, there is an alarming similarity to old-line manufacturing. The organizational, functional and management parallels between the group that manages the customer today and the group that manufactured products forty years ago, are remarkable. In particular, the manufacturing crisis of the late 1970 s and the customer service crossroads of today bear a resemblance worth noting.

In a study conducted by the Harvard Business Review (The Growth Crisis, July 2002), once financial engineering and international expansion are stripped away, there has been little or no core growth in the largest companies in America in the last decade. In order to survive and remain viable, companies must re-think the way in which they serve their customers. There are lessons that can be learned from the crisis in manufacturing and there are unique challenges that can be overcome in a unique way.

After years of researching the customer service center, we have developed several principles for building best performers. We have distilled our findings into the basic laws that govern success and failure in the market and provide them here for you to adopt.