How not to waste time benchmarking your customer service | Good ...

Benchmarking can be a useful wake-up call.? Looking at how well others are doing stimulates ideas and opens your eyes to opportunities for improving the performance of your business.

But in my experience all the effort is wasted if you compare against the wrong things.

The lessons of this article are

• think carefully: will benchmarking customer service bring any business or customer benefits at all?
• if you decide to benchmark, choose the right comparators;
• focus 100% on your customers rather than your own company or your competitors.

1.? Don?t benchmark against your competitors

There?s one compelling reason why this is a waste of time.? It?s because your customers don?t care how well you do against your competitors, they care about how well you do for them.? So the return on investment (RoI) is zero.

Some argue that by benchmarking your service against competitors you can identify best practices within the industry or your own function, and by raising awareness of the issues that need to be addressed, then customer experience will be improved.? I say that?s a distraction and even if you comprehensively outperform your competitors you may still be underperforming for your customers.

To illustrate the point, consider an extreme example ? like banks or phone companies, two groups that have consistently poor satisfaction ratings.? If you are a large bank, you make huge profits on the back of revenues from your customers. So don?t compare yourself to the snails with whom you compete when, in view of your resources, your customers expect you to perform like an Olympic sprinter.? Hold that thought.

2.? The only important service benchmark is the reasonable expectations of a customer

In contrast to the zero RoI from measuring against your competitors, the RoI can be substantial if you meet the benchmark expected by the people who pay you, and upon whose verdict your reputation depends.

If you measure how you?ve done against how a customer expected you to do, you can guarantee that customer is satisfied, every time you deal with them.? Providing you check at the right time to make sure, and providing you recover from any service failures immediately.

Success in the customer?s eyes leads to repeat business, and more personal recommendations through which you can acquire new customers for free.?? So if you are to measure anything, and I recommend you do, invest your energy being brilliant at measuring up against your customers? needs.

Repeat business plus new customers equals high RoI.

3. Innovate ? benchmark against something impressive instead

A couple of weeks ago I emailed two different people in two different companies.? I wanted to pay them money and I needed bank details so I could pay online.

How long do you think it took for the replies to come?

Both came within the hour, and the bank details were complete and correct.? That was impressive.

In fact compare that with the response times to my last three customer service enquiries (not the same companies as the payments) in which replies came after 2 days, 6 days and?still waiting.

So what standard of performance and consistency would leave your customers talking about you and sharing their good experiences concerning all their interactions with you?

I don?t recall ever hearing someone recommend I buy from a company because they?re lightning fast at taking my money.? But I do pay attention when I hear that a company always replies quickly, gets it right first time more often than not, and makes it very easy to resolve when there?s a problem.? That?s what we all talk about to one another ? because it feels so rare.

4.? Become the remarkable benchmark

Impressive customer service performance is not primarily achieved through targets, measures and processes, it?s about people and culture and values.

However when all of those things come together there are impressive and sometimes heart-warming results, such as this example of a young boy who contacted Lego.

?Boy writes letter to LEGO after losing minifigure, gets awesome response?

You?ll also see from the comments that other customers share the good feeling about Lego, which shows they?re consistent.? That too comes more from people and culture than benchmarks, though measures can certainly help the people to control the results.

5.? Conclusion: What?s your goal?

Consider the return on investment in each case?

Blisteringly fast accounts dept?? You get the money you?re due.? Maybe a little sooner.

Outstanding customer service?? You lose no customers to your competitors, they?re more willing to buy from you, they recommend that their friends become customers too.

If your goal is ?slightly less bad than everyone else? then by all means benchmark against your competitors.? If your goal is to make customers happy about spending more money themselves and recommending you, then you?ll want to aim a little higher!

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Source: http://blog.customersure.com/2013/02/11/how-not-to-waste-time-benchmarking-your-customer-service/

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