Customer Service Centers

A very important moment of truth for any organisation. A customer coming here will take that experience home.. It becomes more important if you know that most of the customers are going to come there for some problems or complaints. Because at this point, they are already unhappy with your product. Now upto service centers to do the damage control.
I have observed so many service Centres of different companies. Actually worked myself too on the front desk.. for one of the most unhappy lot of customers(During closure of US64)..

Problems of every service Center

1. The front desk staff is very demotivated and down after having listening to complains of angry customers.. Most of the time for no faults of theirs.. Organisation needs to do something to keep them motivated..
2. It needs personal face to face interaction.. If the front end staff is smiling you can make a lot of difference.
3. Timing issues: As most of the customer service centres are during normal office hours.. The customer will have to come to the centre during his office hours either by bunking office or taking a leave. He is most probably very hard pressed for time. But with limited staff, he would have to wait. So for most of the customers every minute waiting would feel like an hour.. So some of the ways of solving it which many organisations are doing too.. Work on weekends(Auto service companies).. Work after office hours(ICICI).. Give an estimated time of fix as the customer reaches the center and better if you can tell him when he asks on phone.. So he is prepared for it.
4. Follow up and updates to customers: Many organisations have proper process for follow up systems. But many a times they falter on the promised updates.. And this becomes a big factor of dissatisfaction for customers.
5. Expected level of services: This is also very important.. Actually customer has got different expectations for different organisations. Normally for government offices/PSUs they are more tolerant.. Because they expect them to be hopeless. So if they can get their work done easily, they will be very very happy. But for Private sector, they expect services to be more than exceptional.. They want their problems to be solved as early as possible. Any delay means dissatisfaction. They will compare it with the best of the services.

I have noticed that Maruti Suzuki is great at their Service Centers. They have evolved best processes to service their customers. Others can learn a lot from them.