Smashing Magazine delivers a great long form article on upping the ante with customer service. The article has both broad strokes, including advice like “If we do not engage with our clients in a real, personal way, then we are just another vendor — and vendors are easily replaceable with better cheaper options,” (emphasis in original) as well as case studies, like the work they did with the Tori Lynn Andreozzi Foundation.
A new customer service interface called Desk.com could be a powerful asset for small businesses in particular because it streamlines the various streams of communication that your customers might reach out to you through. Desk.com’s parent company Assistly (a recent acquisition of Salesforce) works well with massive companies like Starbucks and Bank of America, but Desk.com is more tailored to smaller customer service teams, including those at TED, Spotify, Yelp, Vimeo and Instagram.
Tech Journal shares their thoughts on the concept of “customer blind spots,” and speak firmly in favor of continuing to wow customers after the point of purchase in order to avoid them switching to competitors. They surveyed a number of customers, and identified that in particular “Wireless phone, cable and gas/electric utilities providers each experienced the greatest increase in consumer switching – five percentage points.” They determine that the blind spots come from this observation:
The study found that consumers rate “having the service experience match the promise a company makes to me up front” as one of the most important areas of customer service. Yet the greatest service frustration cited is a provider’s failure to deliver on the service experience promised up front.
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