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February 28, 2010
Eyes on the Customer
Customer service has been on my mind lately. In recent months, we have noticed a growing tendency for customers to put more burden on us as services providers...in some questions pushing the boundaries of our contracts. So we have been evaluating our practices and their impact on customer relationships and satisfaction.
In thumbing through the March 1 issue of BusinessWeek and the article on Customer Service Champs, I was struck by a quote from survey winner LL Bean's Terry Sutton, Vice President for Customer Satisfaction. The article was talking about Bean's decision to keep its service operations in ME vs. off-shoring the operation, and also about its employee wage and benefits packages. Sutton commented that the money was well-spent since happier employees translated in better service which improved repeat business. The quote that caught my attention was "The technology has changed the game, but the basics haven't changed. We treat customers like we'd want to be treated."
In our business, we are facing increased competition as larger companies step down to pick up work from accounts once below their radar, pricing pressure due to off-shoring, and still-shrinking marketing budgets. As a result, every day we balance the costs of servicing our largest accounts as well as smaller, but promising, new clients. In budget terms, strict adherence to our commitment might be financially prudent, but it could easily lead to a "nickel and diming" behavior that would annoy all parties. So, we are working hard to define approaches to pricing and account management that let our team and our clients work more fluidly, as partners, while still ensuring reasonable compensation.
It is easy to believe that somehow our services and technology offerings will also win the deal, just as it might be easy for LL Bean to believe their products are better and will always win the sale. In practice however, customer experience is typically the differentiator and if they, or us, lose sight of that, we lose our competitive advantage..and maybe more.
Posted by jcioban at February 28, 2010 11:53 AM
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