This week, organisations over the world are celebrating Customer Service Week with the 2020 theme ‘Dream Team’ which is intended to emphasize the importance of teamwork to delivering outstanding service. On that thought, how customer service providers make the effort to deliver service against how the service effort is enabled, should be seen as two sides of the same coin according to the Harvard Business Review. As a former customer service leadership professional, I see this annual anniversary as a perfect time to recognize and celebrate the ecosystem of service delivery and the role of all players – front-line employees and customers alike.
However, at times like these, organisations must realize the’ experience’ opportunity they hold in giving customers reliable normalcy and compassionate understanding while providing employees with enabling support, transparency and feedback. If a ‘Dream Team’ is a genuine aspiration, we need to review exactly how that can be accomplished in today’s world of remote working operations and online ‘almost everything’.
As our new normal becomes the norm, will customer experience still remain the differentiator in customer buying decisions as we have constantly been led to believe? – I say yes, on the condition that the service experience is robustly complimented and enabled (not driven) by technology. Great customer service will just look different with a bigger emphasis on what technology can make possible to the experience. The digital age is our present revolution and has so much more in store for us. Therefore, we need to keep adapting as this opportunity window evolves.
Still on digital things, business coach and marketeer, Sam Harvard provided some interesting thoughts on the subject in his 9-minute podcast with me recently.
Happy Customer Service Week to you!