Just about every company faces tough choices about how to improve operations in an increasingly tough environment. Companies need to be careful that short-term cuts don't lead to long-term pain.
I've clearly stated my perspective that the worst thing companies can do in the Great disruption is to stop investing in innovation. Companies might think that innovation and survival are discrete choices. They are not. Companies that stop innovating are sowing the seeds of their own destruction.
Customer service is another investment companies should cut cautiously. Two companies to which I have been a loyal customer for years severely tested that loyalty within the last week.
The first was a rent-a-car. I've been a loyal five-star-gold-status to the rent-a-car co.customer for years. I generally choose this car rental co. because of its convenience. Last Tuesday, I arrived in Chicago's O'Hare airport at around 8:30 in the evening. I and my fellow travelers first waited about 20 minutes in 10 degree weather for the bus from the terminal to the rental car location. None of our names were on the #1 Club Gold board.
Upon entering the rent-a-car building, we saw a long, snaking line of steaming customers waiting for the three check-out people to ... slowly ... process orders. Your journey wasn't done after you waited 50 minutes to get to the front of the line. You had to wait another 20 minutes for your car to be cleaned and driven up to the building. Smart customers (not me, unfortunately) walked up the road to another rent-a-car co.
The staff said that they had just gone through a big round of layoffs, and didn't have sufficient capacity to meet demand. Their rather laconic pace indicated that this was their attempt to show management the impact of downsizing.
I sympathize with the workers, but the net result was a vow to never use the rent-a-car co. in future visits to Chicago. One episode was enough to destroy years of built-in loyalty.
The other example is major financial organization. I've always been a fan of the company. Heck, I almost took a job with the financial firm after business school. But in the last few months the company has been mindlessly turning down the screws on Innosight.
We are a consulting company, which means we travel and run up credit card balances when we are on the road. We are a profitable, solvent, healthy company that charges tens of thousands of dollars a month, generating reasonable interchange fees for the financial co.. One of our cardholders was a bit late paying their bill last year, so the credit card co. froze all of our cards. (The project team that was in Europe appreciated that.) Then, without telling us, they capped our spending. Our office manager keeps trying to get me to talk to a supervisor, but we keep being walled off.
The net result? We're looking for another corporate card provider. The credit card co. might be saving pennies today by moderately decreasing the default rate of small businesses, but it's losing long-term loyalty that could haunt it for years.
I suspect my run-ins with the rent-a-car company and the financial company were not isolated incidents. And I suspect many more companies are making what seems to them to be rational short-term decisions to shut off innovation and slash customer service. If you are considering these moves, make sure you don't just focus on the tangible cost savings. Consider the negative impact of -- sometimes sharply -- decreasing customer loyalty or your long-term ability to compete.
One should look at bettering the e-process to serve customers better rather than have less customer service agents with a traditional contact center.
Its time... Customer needs it and We have to give it.
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Customer service is vital for building a strong relation to promote the business and increase the profit of an organization. Poor customer service experience can lead to a drop in profits,lost a customer and generated bad word of mouth.
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