Customer Service

In a very tough economy, keeping customers happy should have more considerable weight and attention from companies.  I had a negative customer experience recently at Home Depot, where they had a chance to redeem themselves from a very poor customer experience. On March 18, 2009, I went to Home Depot to buy some tools to [...]

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I’d venture to say that most people don’t have a desire to call customer service.  If one ever got lucky enough and passed the Interactive Voice Response (IVR), the customer service representative (CSR) is sometimes not all that helpful (like the time I spoke with Qwest Customer Service, my post about Qwest).  But, getting passed [...]

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Most organizations believe that Customer Service contacts are what needs to be fixed or eliminated.  On the surface, that might be true.  But, when approached as a Lean Thinker, Customer Service contacts are truly only symptoms, the root causes of which are not yet fully known.  In what follows, I’ll explain the role of Customer [...]

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In some organizations, the Customer Service function is largely viewed as a cost center, draining resources of the firm. I maintain that this perspective is what less mature companies support. More mature companies and, subsequently the more successful ones, understand the strategic fit of Customer Service in the overall value chain and it’s functional role [...]

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In some organizations, the Customer Service function is largely viewed as a cost center, draining resources of the firm.  I maintain that this viewpoint is one that less mature companies support.  In what follows, I’ll take a hypothetical iPhone defect case and show how customer service in this example plays a pivotal role in the [...]

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Bijan shared this great, real-world experience of how getting the basics perfect is, in fact, a loyalty driver: his experience? — with Amazon.com Customer Service. In his words, Two weeks ago I bought an item on Amazon. It was a toaster oven. In my haste I shipped it to my brother instead of my home [...]

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My internet connection broke this weekend.  I called customer service and was connected to a customer service representative in the Philippines.  He was very nice, cordial, and really wanted to help.  But, a few things were broken in the communication: It is fine to source offshore services to places like the Philippines, India, and elsewhere.  [...]

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