The Changing Customer Centric Approach of Customer Care

The customer is always comes first for any business. All organization takes customers on top to provide them the best services. Earlier when companies were not focusing for their customers then the loss was too high. Companies are learning from their mistakes. Today, the difference and the distance between call centers and the customers is declining with the help of the new technology medium of the customer's choice - telephone, email or web chat for example - and effective problem resolution during the first call.

Now forget about those old days when the only way to discuss your phone bill was via the one number at the top of the BT invoice, today the customer has a number of contact options depending on the nature of the query and the required speed of response.

Customer relationship management helps call centers to deals with the customers and clients and make best use of developments such as IP telephony, routing and screen popping - company-wide contact centers are designed to consolidate these interactions. The old distinctions between inbound and outbound, telephone and the web, fax and email are all disappearing in the drive to connect the customer with the most appropriate contact as quickly and smoothly as possible.

The customers are always looking for quick reply so it’s very important to give them the correct information on right time. Now the next question comes that Why is this important? Costs typically increase five-fold if the issue is not dealt with at the first call, staff become demotivated and disenchanted customers vote with their feet. All of these can now readily be addressed and the 'holy grail' of win-win achieved.

Similarly, managers often complain about hearing of problems too late. Here the answer centers around published service level agreements which set realistic expectations and enable customers to find out about - and, ideally, track via the web - the progress of the issue in question.

This is especially important when several companies are involved, such as a retailer, manufacturer or service agent. If there are no SLAs in place or no structured way of managing escalations, no-one takes ownership of the problem and the customer may well be 'bounced' from department to department or company to company.

The result? He or she will almost certainly circumvent the established escalation procedure - the polite way of saying you will have an angry customer on the phone demanding to speak to the managing director. Which then rebounds on the help desk or call centre manager?

So to make service an integral part of your organization, boost customer retention and improve employee productivity you need to carefully consider the channels your customers might use to make contact and how you will keep track of the interaction.

Customer satisfaction in contact centers is at an all-time low. Never before have customers been more frustrated with the service they receive. The game is changing from one of customer acquisition to one of customer retention. With these conditions in place, senior management must take the necessary steps to deliver a personal touch to each and every customer.

We have seen company’s ranked number one fall in the rankings while smaller, more intimate companies jump to number one. We can attribute a large portion of these changes to that “personal touch.” It all goes back to the feeling of walking into your favorite restaurant where the owner recognizes you and knows what you want the moment you arrive.