Is Customer Service An Afterthought?

For retailers with e-commerce operations, there is almost a direct correlation between promotional campaigns (web ads, email, mobile, radio etc.) and the call volume to the customer service department. In this day and age where retails present compelling "deals of the day" to customers and bombard them with emails, the customer does come to the website to save a buck or two!

And the customers pour in via all channels and try to grab merchandise things can go wrong, such as, orders not received on time or errors on website. The natural upshot of this is an overwhelmed customer service department because the customers will call in.

Here are some ways the pain points for the customer service department can be alleviated,

1. If customer is truly comes first for the company, then do things that highlight that lofty goal. When undertaking any project, whether it be adding new payment types such as, Bill Me Later, or changing returns policies, provide lot of self help tools and guidance to the customer. Any process automation or IT project should include a phase for providing self help tools to customers.

2. The marketing department has to work closely with the customer service department. This is much easier said than done. It sounds so simple but difficult to do it religiously. The problem is departments in a typical company are silo ed. Every one is busy and so people are comfortable in their own islands. Cross functional interaction is the key and must be done

3. Top management must be aligned with the "customer comes first" principle. Without the top management buy in nothing will happen. Every one can feel warm and fuzzy but nothing get done without buy in.

These three points should get any company started in scaling greater heights and truly pleasing the customer.