Let’s face it. If you provide a poor customer experience, your customers will leave you. But “good” is debateable, but “bad customer service” is less so. In other words, what is Amazon’s idea of good customer service and how does it differ with other customer experience strategies or other customer interactions? In either case, applying Lean in Customer Service is advisable. In all discussion on customer service companies, there’s one company that is heads and shoulders above most others.
There are obviously differing strategies and definitions and answers to the question “what is good customer service?” I think in general, the answers fall into three camps:
- Perfect service in order to prevent a customer service contact.
- If we did something wrong, then please contact us and we’ll make it right.
- Contact us for anything, we appreciate the interaction and wish to build a human connection with you.
Jeff Bezos explains the Amazon Customer Service strategy in a recent Wired interview 1. His answer supports what I’ve argued for a long time regarding customer service strategy and Jeff Bezos’ answer places Amazon Customer Service squarely in the “perfect service so the customer doesn’t have to contact us” camp.
Levy: Two years ago, you bought Zappos. Was that an attempt to absorb their so-called culture of happiness and customer service?
Bezos: No, no, no. We like their unique culture, but we don’t want that culture at Amazon. We like our culture, too. Our version of a perfect customer experience is one in which our customer doesn’t want to talk to us. Every time a customer contacts us, we see it as a defect. I’ve been saying for many, many years, people should talk to their friends, not their merchants. And so we use all of our customer service information to find the root cause of any customer contact. What went wrong? Why did that person have to call? Why aren’t they spending that time talking to their family instead of talking to us? How do we fix it? Zappos takes a completely different approach. You call them and ask them for a pizza, and they’ll get out the Yellow Pages for you.
Notice Jeff Bezos’ use of the terms “Root Cause” – yes, his worldview is very steeped in lean six sigma and it shows in his language and in the overall strategy of customer service at Amazon.
I wrote a post, showing the Amazon approach to Customer Contacts, but using the iPhone Customer Service as a case study.
But Jeff Bezos makes a point to say that the Zappos Customer Service model is fine too, but it’s just not the Amazon worldview.
- http://www.wired.com/magazine/2011/11/ff_bezos/all/1 ↩
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Cornelio Abellanas says
The Amazon approach to customer service is a good model for support functions: if your customer/user forgets that you exist that’s a good indication that you are doing a good job.
Jason Morris says
I work in Customer Service; our company is not to the level of what Bezos describes – yet. But I have it much better than most in Customer Service. I’ve heard horror stories about reps being paid very low wages, having their call stats rigorously monitored and supervisors breathing down their necks about taking more calls, not taking as long on their calls, etc. – all which worsens the customer’s experience, makes further callbacks likely, and puts future revenue at risk of migrating itself to another company.
It all reminds me of a line from ‘The Voyage of The Dawn Treader,”, one of C. S. Lewis’ Chronicles of Narnia books; “One day the cat got into the dairy and twenty of them were at
work moving all the milk out; no one thought of moving the cat.”
While this sounds like something no rational person would do, we do it in business all the time because our focus is so narrow and so shortsighted.
Bezos’ words here show a lot of wisdom. There’s a reason why Amazon is #1. I think the message is, don’t try and lower Customer Service costs through squeezing it out of your Customer Service reps – find out the reasons why you need Customer Service reps, and address those system and process issues that are driving the traffic. People don’t call Customer Service because they like to chat; it requires time and effort that customers would rather spend doing something else. If they are calling you, there’s something waiting to be fixed.
I strongly agree with Bezos, and this article has helped sharpen my own understanding; the answer is not Customer Service reps doing more, it’s internal and external processes so good that there isn’t a need for Customer Service reps.