Good Service Offers ROI
Savvy
organizations
value service
centers as
revenue
generators.
FOR MANY ORGANIZATIONS, service centers are necessary evils that eat budget dollars while adding little value. Because they are viewed as overhead, many service centers (a.k.a. call centers, help desks, etc.) are outsourced to reduce costs. But that may not guarantee that
Bart Perkins is
managing partner
at Louisville, Ky.-based Leverage
Partners, which helps
organizations invest
well in IT. Contact
him at BartPerkins@
LeveragePartners.com.
you’ll save money, and worse, it can alienate customers by presenting as your public face service-center staffers who may have insufficient product
knowledge, language capabilities or civility.
Savvy organizations value service centers as
revenue generators. That doesn’t just mean that
they have staffers take orders in addition to answering questions. It means that they also expect staffers to be strong brand advocates who have personal
experience with the products. These organizations
treat their service centers as primary customer
contact points. Their operations align with the
assertion in the book Marketing Metrics, by Paul
Farris et al, that “customer satisfaction provides a
leading indicator of consumer purchase intentions
and loyalty.” Thus, every customer interaction
becomes an opportunity to improve customer
perceptions and relationships.
Skullcandy, L.L. Bean and a few other orga-
nizations have taken this philosophy to heart.
L.L. Bean’s Carolyn Beem describes the retailer’s
service center as “an integral part of the business
and the brand. It is a revenue generator and the
face of the brand.”
L.L. Bean and Skullcandy recruit service-center
staffers creatively. L.L. Bean sends recruitment
emails to customers. Skullcandy announces jobs
on Facebook and Twitter. Both methods generate
numerous applications. Hiring choices are based
more on customer-service orientation than product
knowledge: Candidates must show an ability
to handle difficult customer interactions, such
as rude refund requests, unreasonable product
replacement demands and convoluted product
questions, while remaining calm and respectful.
Skullcandy augments its small, in-house service-
center team with “brand experts,” who are custom-
ers hired part time to handle chat lines. Brand
experts are paid a competitive wage, but most
find recognition to be more important. Successful
answers to customer queries earn the experts points
that can be redeemed for new or limited-edition
products. A leader board displays point status,
garnering the best experts peer (and management)
recognition. Passionate experts often research
thorny issues so that they can send follow-up emails
with additional information or improved solutions.
