How you respond impacts your customers’ service experience

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 01/03/2025 (231 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The quality of your customer service experience has a financial impact on your company. It costs six times more to find a new customer than to keep an existing one.

You want to deliver a meaningful customer service experience that encompasses the components that increase overall customer satisfaction. Customer satisfaction is a measure of your organization’s overall responsiveness, knowledge, empathy and problem-solving performance. The main goal is to provide superior value that brings your customers back.

In my work, I usually see companies create a positive customer service experience when they focus first on responsiveness — a combination of the timeliness and honesty of your response, quality of your response and any followup after initial contact.

Most customers with a simple question or a complaint want to be heard in a meaningful way. The acknowledgement by the staff must be prompt and genuine or the customer may become increasingly frustrated and irate.

As a customer, I have experienced many canned responses, where a company representative seemingly read from a script. This is not the best approach. In addition, most people can sense when someone is truly listening and engaged in a conversation and not just going through the motions. Front-line contact people need to be human, not automatons.

The second most important component of responsiveness is a willingness and belief the customer’s question can be answered or the issue fairly resolved. Remember: the customer is not always right, but the customer is always the customer.

When customers are treated respectfully and with empathy, they are more inclined to have a reasonable conversation. I am still old school and believe people should be formally addressed by name by a company representative. Please, no more casual, “Hey Tim, howya doin’ today?”

Sometimes, even if a customer requests compensation, your company may have a legitimate reason not to provide anything and your reason must be clear. While there are too many variables to review here, the main objective is still to achieve a fair resolution at this point and ensure a level of trust with the customer, where they feel comfortable dealing with you again.

The final element in your responsiveness tool kit is followup.

The gold service standard is always first level resolution of the issue or question meaning the first contact person should be able to resolve the situation. Your staff should be so well-trained and company expectation so clear, any high-level executive involvement only reinforces the initial staff position.

If this is not the case, then customers will always ask to speak with a higher authority. Your customer contact team may also feel as though their power to resolve issues is diminished or removed if a decision they originally made is changed by the higher authority that gets involved.

When a call was escalated to me, I always wanted to gain a resolution with the customer, while ensuring I was not undermining my team’s confidence. If my decision differed from that of my staff, I always provided an explanation to the staff, so they understood the reasons behind my decision and remained confident in my leadership and our process. This ensured they could apply that same reasoning to future customer interactions.

In my work with clients, this is an area I focus on because it is easy for a leader to use “executive privilege” and resolve the issue any way they want. I advise company leaders to first use the existing tools and rules their staff use. If that tool or rule is not helping to create effective responsiveness to the situation, then any rule changes must be made for everyone.

Your ability to train for consistency and adjust as required will build customer trust with your organizational response and provide employees with confidence they can consistently deliver a superior overall customer service experience. Leading companies know improving customer service experience with responsiveness is the foundation of a winning game plan.

Tim’s bits

Your responsiveness to a customer issue or question can help save the customer’s impression of their overall experience. The approach, care and genuine human focus displayed by any staff member can improve how customers feel about interacting with your company.

Tim Kist is a certified management consultant, authorized by law, and a Fellow of the Institute of Certified Management Consultants of Manitoba

tim@tk3consulting.ca