I’ve asked myself this question one too many times, hanging up the phone in disgust after dealing with someone who clearly did not define my concept of good customer service.

For most people, good customer service is getting what you want. However, the truth of the matter is that good customer service is all about getting what you need.

That may mean not always hearing what you want to hear, but hearing what you need to hear. It also means being open to listening.

Too often we go into  a situation with an issue or question and then set our expectations on the outcome or response. Customer service is not about the customer being right, it’s about determining their wants and addressing their needs and doing this all in a courteous manner.

I have a friend who works in a call center. He deals with difficult customers all day long. His goal is to help them solve their issues. The company wants the same, as long as he keeps his average handle time down and call volume up. Quality and quantity don’t always mix. Just like wants and needs.

Think of it this way, your client – internal or external – wants a solution. You propose an option, but instead of accepting the entire proposal, they decide to piecemeal the process, do as little as they can to keep cost or time investment low.

You know that by diluting the process it will ultimately backfire on them. So good customer service would be to show them – diplomatically, of course — what they really need while still trying to meet their cost and time constraints.

And, yet, organizations seem to ignore the importance of good customer service. Oh, sure they give lip service to the idea, but when it comes down to the real deal, they’re all about the meeting their numbers.

I recently worked with a client who indicated he was having difficulty retaining customer service reps. I asked what he was paying. He said $8/hour. I told him that might be why. He wondered why he had to pay more for someone who just answered the phones.

So I explained to him that often times a customer service rep is the first contact someone has with a company and they can make or break an image or relationship by how they do their job. He seemed to be in awe because he had never thought of it that way.

His response was amazing to me but goes to the heart of the matter: customer service is important. And good customer service is about finding that place where wants and needs work together.

Thank you for pointing out the importance of customer service as a skill set and that it’s more than just meeting numbers. People who really care about supplying outstanding service to a customer are few and far between. And I for one think that too many companies relegate this classification to the low end of the salary scale believing that anyone can do this job and do it well.

This entry was posted on Monday, May 7th, 2007 at 10:30 am and is filed under Company Culture, Employee Relations. You can subscribe via RSS 2.0 feed to this post's comments. You can comment below, or link to this permanent URL from your own site. Your comments will appear immediately, but I reserve the right to delete innapropriate comments.