4 Good Customer Service Trends—And 1 Scary Myth

At Customer UNinterrupted, I caught an amazing presentation by Lynn Holmgrem, VP & General Manager of Consumer Care at Whirlpool. She told the story of turning customer care from an unloved stepchild into a strategic darling so important that the CEO actually listens to customer calls. With a combination of investing in customer service representatives, focusing on loyalty, using good tools, and correctly interpreting data, Holmgrem cut costs, made employees much happier, improved relationships with other departments—and delighted customers, to boot. This story encapsulated four trends that pervaded the rest of the conference.

Why care about these trends? Because if companies invest more in customer service, UX designers and content strategists will have more opportunity to craft the experience. That is, if we can overcome a myth…

The Trends

1. Customer service is being reframed as a method of strategic insight for marketing and product development.
What better time to understand what customers really think than when they contact you? Whirlpool, EA, and other brands have made the case to marketing and product that customer service reveals much about their work—from what features are troublesome to what marketing messages confuse. The result is executives better perceive customer service as an opportunity, not just a cost.

2. Outsourcing sucks; “home” sourcing rocks.
The outsourcing that looked so attractive on paper is rather ugly in reality. While one speaker attributed it to America’s “racism,” I attribute it to communication theory. (See the article Rediscovering Communication.) It’s just too much work for even the most open-minded customer with limited time to wade through English that isn’t idiomatic. That said, home sourcing a la Jet Blue is proving successful.

3. True customer care requires a mix of real people and self service.
Whirlpool, EA, T-Mobile, and others professed that a combination of contact centers with real people and self service (websites, kiosks, IVRs, etc.) was there to stay. The trick is getting the proportions right and using self service for appropriate tasks.

4. Like it or not, social networking is a part of customer service.
Customer service professionals are concerned about and making strides in communicating with customers through multiple channels and with social networking. Their goal is to find and address customer needs before someone makes a video such as “United Breaks Guitars.”

The Scary Myth:
Design & Content People Think “More Is More”

When I presented the idea of inviting UX design and content people to the planning table for customer self service, a VP of customer care at a major brand asked me an interesting question:

In my experience, design and content people try to add too much, and things like the 80/20 rule are not on their radar. What kind of people do you think should be invited to the planning table?

Suddenly, I had a flashback to a similar misconception at Cingular Wireless five years ago. When I suggested cutting some text in a design, a stakeholder said she was surprised.

I then realized that people who are not designers or content strategists assume we want to add more, more, more to justify our jobs or because we think more of a good thing is…better. Unfortunately, some of these people are VPs. If we don’t correct this faulty logic, we’re going to miss new opportunities to improve customer experience.

With only a few moments to respond, here was my answer:

The type of people you want are the people who balance business goals, customer needs, and technology constraints in their design and content. You want people with past job titles such as user experience designer, interaction or interface designer, and content strategist. They love the 80 / 20 rule. You don’t necessarily want artistic designers or technical documenters.

Not perfect, but it’s a start. Let’s blast this myth.