Over the past three to four months, the volume of end user customers complaining to us about declining customer service within the telecom/technology (ICT) industry has increased. These customers have come to us as consultants to not help them with technology strategies, designs and vendor selection projects, but rather to ‘fix their vendor problems’.
The companies range across industries, size and geography, as well as technology sophistication and dependency.
What is the root cause of declining customer service?
We try to explain to the customers about the downsizing, change and turmoil within the ICT industry, and how it is ultimately affecting the vendors’ ability to provide excellent customer service. We also explain that many of the people who have left the industry have taken not only the technical knowledge with them, but also the understanding of operational processes combined with intrinsic values and behaviours to provide service excellence.
And their response…..so what! “It is not my problem if the companies choose to cut, reduce, re-engineer, etc.” They also tell us that we all have had to make changes, evolve and adapt, and why should ICT be any different as an industry.
What do customers want and expect?
Depending on the industry, size and sophistication the answers vary, but the common themes appear to be the following points below, in no particular order.
Be serviced by knowledgeable, polite staff that have the information they need to handle my problem or request with the least amount of time and effort on my part.
If the original person is not able to handle the situation at the initial touch point, then have the ability to transfer my case and all supporting information to the next person, without having to explain the situation multiple times. Don’t make me keep track of everyone I talked to, what was said, etc.
When I am trying to purchase something, ask me the questions you need to determine my requirements, then provide me with accurate, complete pricing that you will stand behind from a financial and support perspective; and don’t take too much of my time to do this, or involve multiple touch points….I have a business or department to run. Please have some understanding and respect for my time!
Provide the ability to be served in the medium that I choose, when I want, i.e. phone, email, fax, mail, etc. and the ability to have information available disregarding medium.
We believe that it is. Good customer service is a magic combination of tools, processes, people, skills, attitudes and corporate values.
ICT industry has the tools, people and skills to be successful. We believe they need to re-work and streamline the processes to be better at customer service.
We believe the most important and challenging factor for the ICT industry to deliver good customer services is attitudes and corporate values.
This should be the focus from the top down and we encourage the industry to dig deep within their history and hearts in order to regain the quality and corporate values that they once had.
We as customers depend on the telecom and technology industries to provide solutions that allow us to share and transfer information with our staff, suppliers and customers. Many of us also depend on them to deploy and support our technology operations.
We need the ICT industry to excel in customer service, and we hope that they will get there sooner rather than later if we are all to continue to grow and succeed over the long term.
As always, we welcome your thoughts and feedback on this topic.
I hope you have found our thoughts of value, educational, enlightening or at least humorous, and feel free me at Roberta J. Fox at [email protected] or 905.473.3369 x 1001 to discuss further.
