Getting in Your Customers' Way? Policies, procedures or people may be driving them away!

Take the time to evaluate the direction of your customer service and you may discover it's time to realign your compass. Policies, procedures or people may be getting in the way. You may even be losing customers because of these three crucial factors. 

• Policies you have in place and may need to revisit
• Procedures that create hoops for customers to jump through
• People skills of those working with customers and those leading them
  

Policies are often there for the organization's convenience rather than the customers'. Focus, instead, on how to make it EASY for customers to do business with you. As Seth Godin says, “Not changing your strategy merely because you're used to the one you have now is a lousy strategy.”  Some policies:

• Can be eliminated
• Need to be rephrased
• May be initiated
  

Many Procedures have been in place since the inception of the company or organization─or since the first person to do the job created them! Many procedures are still followed simply because “we've always done it that way." Revisit your procedures regularly and make sure you’re not simply creating hoops for customers to jump through. Review how you and your staff interact with customers:

• Face-to-face
• On the phone
• Via email
• Through your website

And, take a close look at the People Skills of those who work with customers─and those who lead them.  According to John Goodman, Vice Chairman of Customer Care Measurement & Consulting, said, “…almost all employees come to work wanting to deliver great service; but the processes and policies they work under ─ coupled with insufficient managerial support ─ are the real causes of customer dissatisfaction and disloyalty." You can download the complete article at https://ubm.io/2JuZLIY

        

People need, in the words of Robert Waterman, 'directed autonomy.' Why they need both—and why they often don’t get it—is rooted in our communication styles.  Many leaders are visionaries, but often forget to take people with them.  And they are lousy at answering questions—which 70% of the workforce need answered to be able to perform their tasks! 

Be sure you’re setting a compass bearing in line with your customers' rather than creating obstacles they must surmount to do business with you.