Toll Free: 877-379-8279Outsourced Customer Management VS Expectations
News / By Scott M. Lewis, President / CEO Winning Technologies Inc
News / By Scott M. Lewis, President / CEO Winning Technologies Inc
As the Winning Technologies group of companies has continued to expand around the world one of the things we focus on religiously is managing our client's expectations to help us meet their needs on an ongoing basis. Regardless if you are a technology company or other service company all service companies continue to work on methods to make sure that we are meeting the clients expectations of the service they are paying for. Service companies are basically caught in the middle, we need and want to provide the best possible service, however the challenge comes with how to manage your clients into a business model where both parties feel they are succeeding and expectations are kept reasonable, manageable and achievable.
As business owners we are constantly trying to educate our employees on the proper method to communicate with clients. I don't care what business you are in, as owners we are always trying to get employees to think the way we do when it comes to customer service. Winning Technologies continues to have ongoing process management training around proper customer interaction, with the base premise that clients do actually listen to what you say, how you say it, and take action based on those statements. As part of that training process Winning Technologies has weekly Communication Status meetings with our technical staff where we discuss in detail the successes and failures of the previous week, and set expectations for the coming week. This constant review of our processes and client interaction helps us identify and determine a course of action to help us get better in the future. We also use these Communication Status meetings to further develop our quality assurance programs, our Client Relationship Management software with a combination of short term corrections, with long term improvement goals.
The Winning Technologies Customer Relationship Management system is a custom program that we continue to improve through our client feedback program and quality assurance processes. Winning Technologies has designed this system to empower the client to have a high level of transparency into Winning Technologies operations so they can take a proactive approach to helping us manage their expectations and customer support levels. We consider our clients business partners and information around that partnership is key to how both Winning Technologies and our business partner manage the contract and the technology needs of their business. Our CRM software also provides both parties with a high level of accountability to what was achieved, items that are outstanding, but more importantly, it is a fully documented process of whom, when, and how we are managing their technology initiatives.
Winning Technologies uses our CRM software, along with our Helpdesk Coordinators, Quality Assurance Coordinators, Project Managers along with Operations oversight to provide us and our partners with multiple layers of protection in order to make sure that we are not only achieving our goals, but the goals set forth by our partners. Nothing replaces human interaction, that face to face meeting, that firm hand shake, but in order to achieve a higher level of satisfaction from our client base it takes more than just a smiley face or a great sales person. It takes a combination of technology, information management, process management, and the human face to achieve great customer service.
The perception of great customer service is always in the eye of the beholder, their perception of, "did I get what I expected?" The key to managing that perspective is information, clear documentation and explanation of what they should expect to get out of the relationship and a clear methodology on how you are going to measure the service provided against that expectation. In the technology arena the interaction between humans and technology, the frustration levels that are experienced when technology does not work as expected make the delivering of customer service very dynamic primarily due to the human emotion that goes into the support of technology. Having multiple layers of escalation can ease that emotional interaction, having well documented work processes support the initiatives around how the service is going to be provided, and then a transparent methodology around accountability and historical trends will provide both parties a level of assurance that goals are being achieved.
Winning Technologies is known for our great customer support and we believe strongly that it is a multipronged approach to managing customer satisfaction. You have to start with setting proper expectations that are reasonable, manageable and achievable. Then, you have to have well documented work processes that are transparent to the customer, so that both parties have a methodology to how their satisfaction is going to be achieved and managed. The most important aspect of what we do is we are constantly under internal review of our policies and procedures, education of our employees and the management the expectations we have of ourselves and our clients expectations of us around a methodology of education, empowerment and accountability. Companies have to expend a lot of resources both technological and human to insure customer satisfaction, it is a dynamic and ever changing process that requires people that are good at management of perception and conflict resolution but if you are clear about the expectation and the reality of service within your own organization on the front end, the management of those on the backside becomes much easier.
