Five Tips to Improve the Customer Experience
The first week of October was National Customer Service Week. Learn how to turn customer service into a channel for learning, empathy, and action, in order to help franchise teams switch from playing dodge to owning customer experience.
By Simona Krebs
Imagine, if you will, a game of dodgeball. Two teams line up on opposite sides of a school gym. In the middle, a row of foam missiles awaits the players. The gym teacher blows a whistle, and a few kids charge towards the center. They take the brunt of the other side’s attack while most of their teammates stay safely out of range.
For too long, that has been the world’s model of customer service. Alone on the front lines, support crews are expected to handle all the complaints and questions flying their way. Too often, they are powerless to make changes that would prevent many problems in the first place.
In honor of National Customer Service Week (Oct. 3-7), consider that there’s an alternative to dodgeball-style customer service. In this model, support is just one dimension of customer experience — a responsibility that belongs to every team member in a franchise. Customer service becomes a channel for learning, empathy, and action. The following five tips can help franchise teams switch from playing dodge to owning customer experience.
1). Be your own customer
If you work for a restaurant franchise, you’ve probably ordered food from one of your stores. But taking the perspective of a customer requires a critical mindset. Every step of the way, you have to ask yourself: What is the nature of this experience? When I pull into the parking lot, what do I notice? When I open the door, what are my first impressions? Waiting in line, ordering, paying, eating, and so forth, what stands out and why?
This an exercise everyone should try. It creates a basis for empathy, the foundation for improving service and experience.
2). Value every comment
Some franchises dodge, deflect or ignore complaints. But consider that every customer who took the time express feedback cares about your brand on some level. Even the most outraged customer cares, otherwise such strong emotions wouldn’t be felt or expressed. Negative comments often come from a positive belief that your franchise can and should be better.
So, acknowledge and address every comment, good or bad, thoughtful or extreme. Customer service is increasingly a public performance thanks to social media. A response to one customer is a response to thousands.
3). Review and use customer feedback
In the dodgeball version of customer service, support is about damage control. For a franchise that values experience, support channels are a rich source of data. Yelp, Google, Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram are not threats but mirrors. How lucky are we to have these free sources of market research?
When you’re trying to use feedback, be cognizant of two issues. First, distinguish between one-off comments and patterns. If one person reports that her salad was missing dressing, you’re looking at a one-off mistake. If customers report that same salad slipup every week, then you move to the second issue: Why is this happening? Is one location behaving differently from its peers? Is a process in the kitchen broken? Differentiate between the substance of a complaint and its meaning to your business.
4). Find motivation in feedback
Customer service is usually about identifying and resolving problems. It can also become a conduit for discovering and celebrating victories.
At Togo’s, positive feedback far outweighs the negative comments. But, if we strictly shared the bad stuff with our team, they would doubt the impact of their work. Just as a news station can paint a gloomy view of the world, a company, too, can feed a disempowering narrative of its work.
Make a habit out of publicizing small victories. Circulate them by email or read them out loud during meetings. You can even ask franchisees to pull positive feedback from their social pages and post it in the breakroom. Positive feedback reinforces your franchise’s best habits.
5). Be creative
Too often, companies view customer service through a narrow lens of problem-solving. Through the prism of experience, customer service becomes an opportunity to surprise and even charm customers.
One example of this at Togo’s is surprising loyal guests who contact us or comment on social media by sending them gift cards, T-shirts, or other Togo’s swag. In addition, when we resolve guests’ issues, we offer a gift card or free meal to show that we value their business. People don’t expect companies to meet disappointment with generosity.
Share the Front Line
In middle school dodgeball, kids usually play for a team of one. It’s a relief, not a loss, when the ball hits a team member.
In the shift from dodgeball to true customer service, teams make a conscious choice to share responsibility. Complaints, problem, and outrage are not dodgeballs to be deflected but rather opportunities to investigate, reflect, and improve. In honor of National Customer Service Week, share the front line. Charge toward the center.
Simona Krebs is Brand and Guest Services Manager at Togo’s.