The 4 P's Of Customer Service

We all know the 4 P’s of marketing – product, price, placement, promotion – that dictate the success of your marketing initiative. But, what about customer service? To me, 4 different P’s apply which are:

• Pain – Or more specifically, lack of pain. Customers want effortless service from the touchpoint (web, tablet, in person etc.) and communication channel of their choice (ex. voice, chat, email, social). They want to receive an accurate, relevant and complete answer to their question upon first contact with a company. They want to be able to start a conversation on one touchpoint or channel, and continue it on another without having to repeat themselves. Forrester data backs this up: 66% of customers say that valuing their time is the most important thing a company can do to provide good service. 45% of US online adults will abandon their online purchase if they can't find a quick answer to their question.
• Personalization – Customers don’t want a “one size fits all” service experience. They want the interaction to be tailored to the products and services that they have purchased, to their specific customer tier, to their past interaction history, to their specific issue at hand.
• Productivity – Customer service organizations must pragmatically walk the balance between customer satisfaction and cost. A customer service experience has to be reliable and efficient. This is a service experience that gets positive customer satisfaction ratings and that can also be delivered at a cost that makes sense to the business.
• Proactivity – Customers want to feel like the company has their best interests at heart, and that the company is partnering with their customers to keep them satisfied and loyal throughout their engagement lifetime. Customers want full disclosure of issues with products and services that they have purchased. They want to be notified, for example that a new software patch is available for their device before they detect the problem. And better yet, they want this proactive service to happen, whenever possible, behind the scenes so that problems are addressed before they happen.