Customer service is often the trickiest department to
manage. The positions rarely produce any
direct income, and at many companies, those in customer service positions are
often some of the lowest-paid, least-trained staff on hand.
Those same underpaid, under-trained team members are responsible for the majority of your company's interactions with customers. You can maintain high customer service standards by looking for these signs of serious trouble.
No Contact With Marketing: A smart company understands that its customer service department is the top marketing investment for the company. Keeping existing customers costs less, and brings in more, than finding new ones. Your customer service representatives should understand your company's key marketing message and how to incorporate it into a call.
A Wide Open Back Door: If your ratio of sales leads to actual sales is low, that means your sales force needs improvement. If your ratio of new sales to repeat sales is low—or you have a high cancellation rate in a subscription-based business—it's time to take a hard look at what's wrong in your customer service department.
Temptation to Forbid Social Media: If you're tempted to enact a policy like this, first ask yourself why your customer service representatives would be tempted to badmouth the job, the product or your company. If your customer service people don't believe in what they're doing, your problems run deeper than what they might say online about your business.
Too Few Complaints: Every company receives complaints. If you aren't hearing about many opportunities to improve, that doesn't mean everything's going great. It means that either your staff isn't telling you about them or your customers aren't bothering to contact you.
Too Many Escalations: Some situations are too delicate or complex for your front-line customer service people to handle. If they have to go to a higher tier of service that means your customer service people are either under-trained or under-empowered. Find a way to give them the knowledge and authority to fix the problems customers are bringing to them.
High Daily Absenteeism: If your unplanned absenteeism numbers are high, with a lot of people calling in sick frequently, that could mean your employees aren't happy at work. Unhappy customer service representatives quickly translate into unhappy customers.
