Just Out-of-Home

Customer Service within Customer Service

March 15, 2009 at 4:59 pm Leave a comment

 Some have the philosophy that the principles of “Branding,” “Customer Service,” and “Advertising;” especially in relation to ad sales, are separate entities. This is understandable on the surface. Although as Marketing (or Advertising, MarComm, or Communications) majors during our higher learning institution days we gained knowledge and were trained to learn and think in a cross-functional / knowledged manner; when we enter the “real world,” we tend to get more focused and / or “specialized” in just one of these fields or subjects.

At the same time, the basic theory that Advertising and Branding serves as the “voice” of an organization, and Customer Service serves as the means of providing and proving the real value of the brand or organization are still, and always, in tack. Especially relevant to advertising sales; one of the realms I have had personal experiences with, the issue of “Customer Service” related to how we conduct business and communicate with brands, agencies and media partners seems incredibly relevant in this manner and the up-most importance. So why suddenly the post talking about the issues of “Branding,” and “Customer Service” in an Out-of-Home Media blog? It is simply because in the past few months, I have heard and become aware of numerous cases where these simple underlining principles seems to have been broken and ignored; which was highly disappointing.

Whether they are cases of poor communications (or even no communication at all), providing shallow, inaccurate, or meaningless “proof” of performance/information/strategy, difficult access to the true scope of what is actually occurring, and even simply ignoring or having the “you can go to someone else if you are not satisfied..”-attitude because the scope or scale of the business or budget is small; this is a great blueprint for failure in any organization even outside of the advertising and branding worlds. Especially, the concepts of “ignoring” and moving business to someone else (a competitor, most likely) are factors I personally shutter to even think about. After all, most businesses around the world start small, and to have a short-sighted customer service strategy simply due to the scale of the business could be absolutely detrimental to the potential long-term relationship that an organization should always be seeking to build, and ultimately, can kill the “Brand” that is your organization. Would you provide poor relations and / or customer service to a Microsoft (started in a garage), or a Google (the result of two college grad dropouts)? Many actually did at the beginnings of these companies, and it would be a safe assume that those companies still regret their decisions (and the way they treated these two companies) to this day, and also pretty sure some “heads have rolled” within them since.

Lesson of the day, and a simple life principle to live by everyday: “Treat others like how YOU would like to be treated.”

A simple case in point: on Twitter; I’ve been following and communicating (vice-versa) with @thebrandbuilder (a.k.a. Olivier Blanchard of brandbuilder.wordpress.com). To get some sources for this post, I asked him to send me a link/site that discusses the topic of “customer service.” I didn’t pay him, nor is there some sort of promise of a return in service. He sent me a great site pretty much right away without hesitation. Is this because he thinks he will get something out of me? No. Maybe Olivier does thinks we are friends; and I hope so, but more importantly, what I Knew was that he is an information aggregator, and loves sharing knowledge like myself; FOR FREE no less. THIS IS HIS “SERVICE,” and I, his “Customer.” At the same time, we may be in different fields, but I also believe that you never know what’s thrown at you in life, and it could just as well be that we may work together professionally down the line. This is a simple example of how long term professional / business relationships are started, and also a great example of having an excellent “Customer/Client-Oriented Mentality.”

At the end of the day; this post is not going to be a “hit list” of organizations that have failed in these manners, but to serve as more of a reminder in terms of some of the basic principles that should be the basis of all organizations; whether you are in advertising, branding, or customer service-oriented industries or not. The source that was provided, serviceuntitled.com points out some of the basic principles related “Customer Service,” so read them below, and those who have been “sleeping;” Get reacquainted.

Customer Service Experience Priorities:

1. Resolving problem / answering question.

2. Working with someone who has a good attitude and is friendly, helpful, etc.

3. Getting issue(s) resolved quickly.

The first and most obvious suggestion is to not misrepresent the information in the first place. Consistently accurate information comes as a result of experience, training, and easy to access resources to verify information. Companies have to work very hard to strongly and actively discourage the giving of inaccurate information. Make complete accuracy a major quality standard,..

Apologize for the miscommunication. First of all, apologize for the miscommunication. Clarify what the correct answer / information is and then apologize to the customer for having to hear the wrong information. (And case of NO communication)

If it’s simple, give it to the customer. If the thing that was miscommunicated is easy to do or follow through with, just do it.

If it’s complicated, try to compromise. If it’s complicated to follow through with what the customer said was promised to them, try to compromise.

Some information about the customer. Don’t go into the call with just a name and a phone number. Check how long the customer has been with your company, what type of services they use, their support history, and so on. 

Ask your customers to stop by. It lets employees and customers interact in a different way. When you have a strictly phone/email relationship with 99% of your customers, putting a face to the names and account numbers can be helpful. - It is a great opportunity to get ideas and feedback. - It improves the brand.

Entry filed under: Etc.. Tags: advertising, Branding, Client-service relationship, communication failure, Customer Service.