Increase Productivity By Introducing Competition Into Customer Service

Writen by Dr. Gary S. Goodman

Countless times when I've consulted to companies, I've heard customer service people take swipes at the sales team, because they believe they're pampered, overpaid, and under-worked.

CSR's say their jobs are just as important. While salespeople bring in new business, CSR's keep these clients happy and on the books. Salespeople sell, and service folks re-sell, so to speak.

I couldn't agree more!

Each function contributes significantly to the bottom line, but there are certain reasons service contributions are invisible to senior management and undervalued:

(1) Service is not designed, in most companies to be results-oriented, but rather, process oriented. The question that is more likely to be asked is this: "Did the CSR sound polite?" and not "Did the customer recommit to doing business with us, because Jennifer induced him to do so?"

(2) There are no objective and meaningful measures of performance in place. A salesperson can say, I outsold everyone else this quarter, so I deserve a big bonus! What can the typical CSR point to, as rock solid evidence of her relative effectiveness?

(3) A sale is defined, but customer satisfaction is not. It would be unacceptable to say Megan is a great salesperson without looking to her buyers to support that claim through purchases. But we call someone good at performing service without measuring her impacts on customer retention.

You get the point.

There is one thing we can do that will change this situation.

Compel managers to rate and to compensate their CSR's, accordingly. If there are ten reps, then there will be numbers 1-10, in the ratings.

This will compel service providers to objectively define results, and it will spawn competition, where currently, there is none.

Healthy competition will help everyone, in the long run, but especially customers who will get the treatment they're looking for, and receive it from folks who are committed to continuously improve!

Dr. Gary S. Goodman, President of Customersatisfaction.com, is a popular keynote speaker, management consultant, and seminar leader and the best-selling author of 12 books, including Reach Out & Sell Someone® and Monitoring, Measuring & Managing Customer Service, and the audio program, "The Law of Large Numbers: How To Make Success Inevitable," published by Nightingale-Conant. He is a frequent guest on radio and television, worldwide. A Ph.D. from USC's Annenberg School, a Loyola lawyer, and an MBA from the Peter F. Drucker School at Claremont Graduate University, Gary offers programs through UCLA Extension and numerous universities, trade associations, and other organizations in the United States and abroad. He holds the rank of Shodan, 1st Degree Black Belt in Kenpo Karate. He is headquartered in Glendale, California, and he can be reached at (818) 243-7338 or at: gary@customersatisfaction.com.