Hi everyone.

As we're all probably aware by now, customer service is an integral part of everyday business activities. By recognising the value of our customers, and handling their enquiries, issues and requests, we help grow our businesses by creating happy customers who come back to us, time and again.

At least that's the plan.

Whether your customer service department is indeed performing properly notwithstanding, I'm intrigued to find out how well your own customer service department is integrated into your organisation, and whether a 'them and us' situation is present.

In my own mind, customer service is a responsibility that every worker, from office junior to managing director, should consider their own. However, I've worked in a few places in which the customer service department was a peninsula within the business - out on a limb, if you will. I wonder if having such departments at the peripherary of the core functions of any business is counter-productive? In other words, a case of one hand not knowing what the other is doing.

Also, the 'them and us' situation can develop into an abrasive co-existence, which can be un-cooperative and very 'jobsworthy' - characteristics of a company in crisis in my mind.

So, bearing this in mind, please feel free to reply if you think your customer service is considered by the rest of the company to be a vital part of daily business or if your company views it as an afterthought, the first place to place your cutbacks when the hammer falls, so to speak.

I personally believe that there is a strong argument for developing a core customer-centric attitude in all staff (and I'm sure DND would agree with me on this) but I feel that the 'them and us' attitude which I've noticed in the past is leading to the customer-centric operations buck being passed.

John

In too many organisations the call centre, and especially CS are notr made to feel a valued part of the organisation. They are the people who answer the phones and much under valued.
Communications need to go both ways they CS dept needs to keep the business aware of its activities as do the other departments. Marketing seem to be the worst in this respect, they almost seem to thrive on an us and them scenario.
What I think needs to happen is to look at the business as a whole. Many times I have seen a we won't support them because they won't support us. It's all one company and one budget. If CS dont succeed as well as everyone else then the business cant survive.
Office politics is resonsible for poor Customer service more often than anything else. We all know what we want to achieve and the best or most efficent way to achieve it, but we can't.

Alex.... agree with your views in totallity.... and am glad there is someone somewhere who is saying this

At a previous company our sale and service department (telemarketing and customer service was a combined) was seen as the eyes and ears of the companies operation and the most important role within that department was that of the sales and service consultant, those that were on the phone daily taking the calls.

The consultants had various channels to feedback comments from customers and information to the business as to what was happening within our market place and therefore we were able to react better as a call centre.

We had great liaison with the other departments (most of the liaison reps were in fact consultants who were given time of the phone to attend meetings) and this allowed the call centre to operate more effectively both with internal and external customers.

For a whilst I was the liaison rep with the marketing department and I attended monthly meetings to see what activity was expected and new channels of marketing that were being worked upon and I was able to feed this back to the call centre. It gave me a deeper understanding of how the marketing department work.

In return, I regularly invited the marketing consultants to come into the call centre to take part in meetings; however, more importantly they came into the department to listen to calls. They could then chat to advisors on an informal one to one basis and this would give them a chance to hear how our customers were reacting. They could speak to consultants and find out where things were working and things needed improving, simple things such as marketing codes etc.

Since moving away from call centre operations (team manger etc) to a support role (trainer and coach) I have found more and more companies now focus heavily on ensuring that the call centre are seen as the centre of the business and the support roles are being left out on the side. Communication to the support roles in some companies I have worked with as been very poor to say the least.

Companies need to understand that each department has an important aspect to play within the call centre and that communication needs to be a two way. Effective two way communication will ensure that both the call centre and its support role achieve maximum success.

This is too an interesting topic to let lie. Anyone care to add their experiences?

Ta,

John

I would agree with John, this is a topic for further discussion.

Despite the positive comments already expressed, my experience has been that CS departments are often setup (reluctantly) because someone needs tohandle problems.

The downside of this "gut reaction" creation, is to create a department that is seperated from the rest of the organisation and whose sole function is to handle difficult customers (cynical eh!). Consequently regarded as expensive to the organisation and ineffective as the customer voice still gets through.

Despite much hard and valuable work in these departments, the resulting dissconnect from the rest of the organisation results in a failure see any value in customer service. In such circumstances the department often becomes a prime target of a cost cutting excersise.

It can be tough in customer service, amd I'm glad to see companies looking at a more wholesome integrated approach to customer service.

Dave C

Perhaps if they were renamed to Customer Retention, they would get more respect within the organization. In the past I have run a number of technical support lines and have always told my agents that their job was not just to solve the immediate problem but to "sell" the next version. Customers who receive poor service tend to look for new suppliers.