Customer Service and Customer Satisfaction go hand-in-hand. Or maybe I should restate that. Too often customer service and customer dissatisfaction go hand-in-hand. Yes, great customer service equates to strong customer satisfaction and vice-versa. Every business leader knows this, yet too often, we get it sooo wrong.
Why does this occur?
The answer to this question is simple. We don’t quite understand how to make a customer happy. Oh there are lots of formulas. There are surveys and questionaires. And of course, there is the customer service scripting 101 that many customer service agents receive. However in 90+% of all cases (okay I made that number up, but I believe its close), the difference between a happy customer vs. a dissatisfied customer following a customer service interaction can be determined by this simple formula.
“The Customer Service Satisfaction Gap is the difference between what an individual expects and what they receive.”
Consequently, the holy grail of great customer service is to simply get as close to a customer’s expectation as feasibly possible. If they want a quick conversation with a service agent and there placed for minutes on music-pause, I’m likely to find a dissatisfied customer. If they expected a new replacement for a defective product and instead had to sedt it in for service with no replacement, I’ll likely find a dissatisfied customer. So to achieve great customer service satisfaction, the customer service agent simply needs to identify the desired outcome up front, and get as close to that outcome as feasibly possible. Instead, this is what typically happens. The customer service agent has a manual. The agent identifies the problem. They go to the manual for what they can offer, and then try to sell (tell) the customer on what a lucky person they are for the prebaked solution. This is a recipe for customer dissatisfaction, so here is the magic quotient, a second time.
Identify the desired outcome (this is what they believe to be fair and would earn their future business) early in the customer service conversation. Then work to get as close to this outcome as feasibly possible. It’s that simple.
Bottom Line: In most customer service interactions, a Customer Service Satisfaction Gap exists. By understanding what it will take to eliminate or minimize this gap is important in a company’s overall customer satisfaction/loyalty score. And as most business leaders understand, loyal customers are the most important customers of all. Therefore, it’s important to do what you can to earn a customer’s loyalty. This is the easiest and most effective means is to positively change your customer service/satisfaction scores.
