When you sell a product you know what you are producing but running a customer service based business is not nearly as clear cut as all that. After all, unlike in a manufacturing based business what you are producing is not tangible and from that standpoint it can offer some unique challenges.
There are only limited ways to assess the function of a customer service
based business and when you are doing so you need to assess not only the
customer's experience but you also must assess and evaluate the level of
service being provided in accordance with what you believe it should be.
One way that companies have found to truly assess the customer service
experience is to offer independent evaluations of said experiences from
a customer's perspective. Most companies do this in the form of secret
shopping where and independent assessor will pose as a customer for the
sole purpose of assessing their experience and letting the company know
exactly what it was like to be in a customer's shoes.
When setting goals for a customer service based company it is best to make sure that you find out as much information as you can from your customers. Most companies use customer surveys and even reward customers for filling them out. Doing so provides customers with an incentive to provide the valuable feedback that a company needs in order to make the positive changes it needs to in order to improve customer experience.
There are of course many opportunities to assess customer experience. You can ask customers for feedback verbally, ask them to fill out phone surveys, or even provide them with a written questionaire. It is of course important that you make it as easy as possible for customers to provide feedback and therefore you will want to select customer inquiry forms that only require the customers to provide number answers or check boxes. This will provide the customer with just a brief inquiry that won't take them much time to get through. After all, you don't want to have your customers encumbered by a survey that is defeating the purpose.
Customer service based industries are a little more complicated to track then manufacturing based ones but understanding how your company is doing especially in the eyes of the customer will provide you with the information you need to ensure that you are meeting your goals. A company is only as successful as its customers are happy. And that is really something you can take to the bank.
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