I went to lunch with a friend who is a divorce attorney here in Oklahoma City. In the middle of lunch his wife called to blame him for leaving the pool gate open. He calmly apologized to her and promised to not do it again.
He hung up and said to me, “I’m a 1000% sure, she left the gate open.” I said “why did you not correct her?” He replied “You can be right or you can be married, you can’t have both” They have been married for 27 years.
The customer is still always right!
Customers get things wrong, but arguing with your customers is a losing proposition. On my podcast with my friend Bob I asked him:
“Is the customer always right?”
He replied: “The customer is not always right, but the customer is the customer.” I tend to philosophize but Bob can turn complex things in the most Yogi Berra quote.
Customers still like to talk to people!
In the late 90s, I thought I would get rich by eliminating humans in customer service. I didn’t.
Every fancy company with the smartest people have predicted the death of the voice channel in the contact center and it is still the number one channel.
Gartner says by 2027 chatbots like Chatgpt will answer 25% of all contacts. This prediction will likely be wrong. Customers will always want to talk to humans. It doesn’t mean you shouldn’t pursue automation, but people will always be at the center.
Customer service is still a game of defense
There is a lot of advise on how to improve customer service. The reward for great customer service is nebulous.
In countless focus groups with customers, I would ask what they wanted from customer service. Never once in over 20 years has any customer asked me for any new technology, or anything new. Their list of customer service requests are the same as they were 20 years ago.
Close your eyes and tell me who are the best customer service companies. How long is that list? Very short.
Now come up with the worst customer service companies. Notice the list is very very long.
The reward for good customer service is apathy, but the reward for being bad is enormous. Avoid doing the bad things in service — do the boring things well.
Most of the advice you read about customer service tells you what new things you should do to improve customer service. No one writes about what not to change in customer service.
Customer service is about avoiding mistakes.
Amas Tenumah is a long time CCNG member and regular contributor with content sharing and engaging with fellow members. He refers to himself as a humanist, futurist, and storyteller. “I obsessively focus on sharing the Truth about two topics – Customer Experience & Living Blissfully.”
