A person wrote to me: “I graduated in Computer Science but got a job as service manager for a small Cloud Computing service company. The company trained me on technical aspects such as network, storage, and security but not much on service. I want to succeed in this job. Do you have any advices?"
Answer: The key factor to succeed in service management is customer satisfaction. The reason is customers have a choice in selecting who they want to do business with. Customers demand value for their money else they can go to somebody else. If customers feel bad about how they have been treated, they will tell their friends about it. Today, they can post their opinions on websites, Facebook, or Twitter then suddenly the company could lose a lot of potential customers. On the other hand, if you deliver good customer support, the same thing could work well for you too. By deliver good service, you will have many customers.
Today software is a service so the job of service manager has become the most important job in the company. You are the representative of the company. You are the person that the customer sees first and whatever they think of you is also what they think about your company. The first impression of you will determine whether customers want to do business with your company or not. Customer’s relationship is based on trust. Without trust, it is unlikely that they will do business with your company so you must learn how to earn their trust.
To start, you must represent yourself by the way you dress and the way you talk. You do not have to dress up nicely or expensively but professionally. Clothing is the first impression of you. Imagine that a customer want to sign contract worth hundred thousand dollars. The representative come in dirty old clothes and not well prepared. Customer may think: “It seems this person has not had a bath in months and his clothes are so dirty. Maybe this company is also bad and may go out of business soon. We should look for another company”. No matter how good is the price, customer’s mind already made up. He is not going to do business with this company.
Many service managers love to talk and could spend hours talking about their companies. The issue is customers do not want to listen to a speech about a company. They want to explain their problems so you can solve for them. A good service manager must have listening skills, NOT talking skills. A service manager is NOT a salesperson in the market but a professional people whose job is to solve customers’ problem. Remember that you are providing a service, not selling a product.
Many service managers like to make promise just to get the business but not follow through. They believe deliver the services is somebody else responsibility. Customers who have been promised something that is not delivered as promised will be disappointed and angry. You must learn to set the expectations correctly and constantly work with other people within the company to make sure that the service is delivered as promise. Everyone in the company must also understand that customer’s satisfaction is important. Without them, there is no company and no jobs. All departments should work together to achieve customer satisfaction. Never promise something that you cannot keep.
A good service manager must being responsive to customers’ concerns. When receive a request, you must answer promptly usually within 24 hours in telephone or email. Any problems that customers have must be dealt with quickly and timely. For example, a bad product must be replaced; a bad service must be refunded. Today many companies are using machine answering phone system to save cost. For service business, this is a bad idea because most customers like to talk to a person rather than a machine. If customer is unhappy, he will say goodbye to your company.
A lot of customers do not like to do business with a new company. In order to get their business, you have to do more to please them. The question is how do you measure customer satisfaction? If you are measuring by the number of complaints you are receiving then you will be in for a big surprise. Most customers do not bothers to tell you about their un-satisfaction, they just go to your competitors. If you are asking them if they are satisfied, you let them know that their satisfaction is important to you so service manager must be actively checking, asking and communicating with customers. If you do not talk to them often as part of your service delivery, you are missing a big opportunity to improve your business.
Today many companies are using website to advertise for their business. It is important that website has contact information such as e-mail addresses for customers to request information, ask questions, and reporting problems. It is important to have telephone number(s) where you can be reached. Your website must be created professionally in a way that customers can find information easily. Your website represents the company; it is your storefront and how it is organized also reflects how the company does business.
Prof John Vu
Carnegie Mellon University
Original source: http://www.segvn.org/forum/mvnforum/viewthread_thread,1306
0 comments:
Post a Comment