What We Need In Customer Service

We all are aware of what a customer service representative of an organization should do to keep the organization in the good books of the customer but the biggest gap is in the form of:

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  Customer Awareness. Most often, the customer (be it internal or external) is not aware of the products and services and their usage leading to nightmarish experiences of the Customer Service workforce of an organization. At times, the organizations form their functional strategies based on this gap, but this only leads to the added expenditure in revamping and elaborating their Customer Care Services which becomes a lost cause with the front line executives becoming the spent force, as they are always in the line of fire juggling between the company policies and the customers, who always feel they have been cheated by the organization. 
  
  

  
  

          This requires the organization to take the initiative to make the customer aware of the benefits of the organizations products and services considering the unique requirements of the customers. This calls for consumer education initiative (Educating the customer of how to use the products and services and its entailing benefits.) This proactive effort will definitely go a long way to have a happy customer service force and customer too.

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  Catch Them Young it may sound more like a far cry but it is a fact that most of us are not aware of our social responsibilities and social systems and this unawareness always makes us feel insecure eventually making us prone to the fear of being misguided or misled through wrong information. This needs holistic approach of making the consumer aware of his or her social benefits and responsibilities so that when availing any products or services of an organization, is fully aware of what he or she needs and what information to seek from the organization helping him to fulfill his requirements. 
• That Extra Mile we are all aware of who is an irate or angry customer and the objective of the Customer Care Department is to keep such a customer at bay and should be treated like a pariah. We also are aware of the fact we should not have angry and irritable Customer Care Executive. What we all ignore is, why do they exist. Attend to the symptoms and not the cause. This is where we need to walk that extra mile to make the customer as well as the Customer Care Executive (The facade of the organization) to make them aware of their responsibilities and the consequential benefit to both conscientious customer as well as the organization. This is no philosophy and not rocket science either. It is merely the initiative of the organization as microcosm of the society at large to proactively share knowledge and information thus educating the segment of the society it is catering to. Subsequently, completing its fair share of responsibilities to the society at large.
• Shared Identity. the relationship with the customer is not merely of give and take but of perpetuation hence the term customer "relationship" and customer "service". We usually refer to the term "Word-of-Mouth" and most of the business enterprises believe that customer's reference is vital to perpetuation of business and beneficial relationship with the customer leads to more avenues for business. This is possible when the customer feels that he or is valuable part of the organization's clientele and this is possible only when a genuine relationship of shared identity is developed with the customer. What we mean by "shared identity" is that both the customer as well as the organization are able to identify with each other and is able to synthesize the progress to be mutually sustainable. This is the key to success of the business enterprise.

This to a great extent can make the organization benefit from the customer through a wise and knowledgeable customer.