Gales Network • Brand building from the inside out

10 October 2007

Are You Being Served?

BIG IDEAS TOPIC: Customer Service
The Big Idea behind Customer Service in today's business environment is that it's changing more profoundly than ever before.

AT ISSUE: The assumption that the same customer service strategy of yesterday will address the needs of today's consumer or client. Additionally, how does the digital landscape change the proposition?

BIG IDEAS VIEW: The nature of customer service, the difference between expectations on the part of management and customers and those who execute those services are in the midst of a seismic shift. It's as fundamental as X, Y and Boom. Twenty years ago the transaction was pretty simple. You had something someone wanted or needed and you attempted to make the recipient feel as good as possible about the transaction, i.e., you served the customer. The happy customer told someone else who told someone else, etc.

Today you may have up to four distinct age cohorts that direct and deliver your brand's customer service but you also have four distinct market segments that expect customer service in different ways based on their generation's life view. Anyone with a brand that has a service component (uh, everyone) has to acknowledge this delta in the customer service equation. Depending on your audience/market, you may be treating your customers the way they expect and therefore retaining them and enjoying their referrals to others, OR missing their expectations target and losing them.

This customer service deficit is no more apparent than in the hotel industry. A 50-something Boomer hotel manager has a perspective (handed down from a Veteran owner) regarding how a bellman or dining room server should address, interact and serve a guest based on both the Brand's promise and cultural norms. The hotel's Gen X guest has a similar, but different expectation of treatment created by his generation's view of service. Those expectations are, in most cases, executed by a Gen Y, whose cultural perspective is markedly different from both the manager and the guest, often leaving much lacking from one perspective and confusion and frustration from another.

A minimum of two distinct challenges must be addressed by any business today. On an internal basis, you must learn to communicate your brand values to your own staff in language that they understand and internalize to a point where they are living and expressing the Brand as you intended throughout any customer service experience. Small team to large, learn to communicate your Brand so it sticks with your staff before they interact with customers or create collaterals that present your Brand to others. How you present your Brand is a core function of true customer service.

Externally, you must consider customer service expectations from clients or
customers based on the way they look at life and the unique expectations they
bring to the party - a reflection of their demographic group. No longer can you
expect to always be face to face in delivering your Brand.

Consider your website. The Gen Y client expects your website to move fast, be
lower on copy detail and higher on fun. The Boomer will want more data, easy
navigation and a live person to provide customer service. Digital or analog, the Y
wants more versions (again, faster), more options (like color), and he wants to be able to vote on it, change it and put his own name on it. The Gen X customer wants to be sure it is the best deal and he wants to have comparison data and be left alone to make his choice. The Boomer wants consistency and appreciates the process of anticipation...a little waiting is fine for the right product. Listening to what that experience should be for each of your market segments and executing on those expectations (i.e., serving the customer) will have a dramatic impact on your success.

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The Big Ideas Report separates the real issues (Big Ideas) from the noise, so that it’s possible to move forward with confidence or simply converse intelligently with others. We identify issues that have a material impact on your business, define them succinctly and suggest a position, so you can get going. Part fact, part opinion, part alchemy, that’s The Big Ideas Report.