Some Key Steps to Transform Customer Service to Customer Relationship Management
For personal as well as professional success, good relationship management is the key, and building strong relationships with others is a life skill. A challenge often faced by businesses is the achievement of customers’ satisfaction as well as building deep relations with them. It is very common to ‘jump in the band wagon’ of revised customer services as an attempt to retain maximum number of clients, but facts are quite different from the fantasy here. According to the American Customer Satisfaction Index measured by the Michigan University, customer satisfaction has significantly decreased in every business level. It is mainly because the rise in customer satisfaction level needs a comprehensive and systematic approach. Companies often make large mistakes like illusioning their customers to expect unrealistic demands from them like creation of a slogan without any supporting initiative to cater the demands exhibited by that slogan. So, there is serious need to devise strategies, after considering the following key points like the overall vision as well mission of any organization must be fully understood by all people related to that organization. The customer service program of that organization must be definite with clear directions, slogan and values and some specific department of that organization must be responsible for its overall customer service activities.
There must be development of a comprehensive communication program, by which strategies for customer services must be shared, and officials should make it absolutely sure that these customer service strategies do not conflict with other business strategies. Removal of dichotomy from key policies is essential for the improvement in customer service and for good relationship management as well. Then selection of people for specific customer services must be done with proper care, with utmost focus on impersonal skills rather than the usual focus on technical competency and functional expertise. Research has shown that the proper attitude is a basic requirement for this job, and the required skills can be taught to the selected individuals, but the proper attitude cannot be taught by anyone, as it comes by naturally.
So, before recruiting people for any job specifically for customer service, always define the critical job requirements as the first step of this important procedure. Prepare practical tests for the candidates, like the development of scenario-based interviews and tests, for the appropriate checking of their practical skills regarding customer services. Never recruit alone, make it a team work by involving a whole specifically devised team in this procedure. Evaluation of tests must be done by some objective criteria and never adopt the ‘be like me’ approach in this regard. For doing good relationship management, the main focus of the company must always be on the clients, and although lots of companies claim that clients are their first priority, these are often mere words without any solid background proof.
Integral part of customer relationship management in this modern era is specifically designed and automatic software for controlling marketing, sales and customer services more effectively and easily, although the human element cannot be underestimated in this regard as well. Although many horror stories are attached with the functioning of such software, the risk of anything going wrong with such software is greater where big corporations are involved, and for small businesses its success ratio is mercifully high.
The new CRM software will help you with your contact management (as we all know the #1 rule for running successful business is to keep your customers happy and satisfied) and your sales pipeline. Read more about tthe specifications of this software here.
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