To rework a line from former CEO of Hewlett-Packard Lew Platt: “If only your company knew what your company knows, you’d be three times more productive.” With Netfor, you could also improve your customer experience and strengthen your brand.
A comprehensive assessment of your “help desk” or “call center” is the best way to tell if you know what your company knows. There is real value in the data available from your “help desk” or “call center.” Knowing how to use that data to gain the greatest benefits is vital to your improvement.
For our clients, Netfor discovers what they need to know to improve by engineering and implementing powerful, personal and effective customer experiences. Start to assess how that same information can be valuable for your company by applying your situation to the four key areas. We’ll cover those key areas in this five-part series, wrapping up with a rundown of what’s at stake if you choose to ignore your customer service experience. (To make our mini-assessment as user friendly as possible, we’ve enlisted the help of Charlie, our fictional character.)
No. 1: IMPACT & URGENCY
Core changes within a service organization are the cause of the majority of customer service and support problems received through the typical “help desk” or “call center.” When groups change services within an organization and they don’t take steps to communicate the changes to other groups that may be affected, these so-called “sloppy changes” cause the most grief for customers of the service. Measuring the quantity and severity of problems empowers an organization to manage changes more effectively. Anytime a customer experiences a problem or major problem, it can lead to frustration and wasted time. This can escalate and pervade large groups of customers.
Major problems should be viewed from a two-pronged standpoint of impact and urgency.
• How many customers were impacted?
• How urgent was the problem?
In most cases, impact and urgency are considered together. For example, if VIP or executive-level customers are impacted, the urgency of a problem will probably be greater than if the same number of regular customers experienced a problem. If one doctor experiences issues with her voicemail, that one problem doesn’t affect many more people than the doctor. If the same doctor is about to give a presentation to a conference room holding 300 healthcare professionals and she’s having issues with the presentation tool, many more people are being impacted. This increased impact would, of course, increase the urgency of the problem.
Failing to prioritize problems means you are treating every problem the same way. If you know that “X” problem is affecting hundreds of people and “Y” problem is impacting two people, you have the knowledge needed to prioritize one problem over the other when it is necessary.
Real-World Anedote
You just received a call from the principal of your son’s school. Charlie started a fight and had to spend his recess period in detention. That’s important information to know so that you can deal with the issue accordingly. But what if you had more information? What if you learned that he actually started a school-wide food fight in the cafeteria? That problem impacted a lot of students and teachers, increasing its urgency, and thus likely changing how you will resolve the problem once little Charlie gets home.
