There are a lot of great books out right now about customer experience management and customer service principles. I've read many and have mentioned or reviewed a few here on my blog. 

That brings me to the topic of today's post: Steve Curtin's new book, Delight Your Customers: 7 Simple Ways to Raise Your Customer Service from Ordinary to Extraordinary.

Why do we need yet another book on this topic? Well, I think we all tend to come at this topic from a different perspective or a slightly different angle. Steve doesn't disappoint with his book; it is certainly written from a fresh point of view. And it's packed with a lot of details and comparisons to help you understand what is ordinary and what is extraordinary.

For over two decades the internet has changed the way in which businesses and institutions have delivered their products and services to consumers. In fact, the abundance and the range of online resources and services and the level to which they have been adopted has called to predict the harbinger of death for bricks-and-mortar businesses and institutions.

However, a large contributing factor for this is that too many of these have been treating the bricks-and-mortar or offline parts of their organisations as completely separate entities to their online services. This has been to their detriment, and it has now become clear that for many businesses to survive and remain relevant offline, as well as online, they have to adapt and evolve each to become one part of a greater whole.

A new school of thought

Universities represent some of the eldest institutions in the world, and it is they that are representing some of the first to react to the idea that online services can be used to supplement offline offerings.

Starting off in America, the widespread implementation of MOOCs has recently hit the shores of the UK, with leading universities such as Bristol, Kings College and Exeter all offering courses through the conduit of the Open University’s online platform. Standing for massive open online courses, MOOCs give students access to a selection of higher education content that students can follow online for free.

ICMI's ACCE 2013 conference for call center professionals was a customer service extravaganza and a terrific learning experience (see my re-cap here). 

One of the best features of the conference was the Thought Leaders Discussion Table. It consisted of a rotating group of panelists who engaged in fifteen minute, freeform discussions on a variety of call center topics ranging from technology to social media. 

I was fortunate enough to moderate the first three panels:

Panel #1
Panelists included Tiffany LaReau of Human Numbers, Todd Hixon of Intuit, and Bob Furniss of Bluewolf. They kicked things off right with a great discussion on social media.

 

Click here if you can't see the video.

Panel #2
Panelists included Katy Wild of Freeman, Ben Paganelli of VIA Unlimited, and Lou Paduto of Satori Software. Incidentally, Lou and I will be co-facilitating a webinar on reducing call center stress on Thursday, June 20.

Are you getting the most out of your customer service staff? I’d bet dollars to donuts that you aren’t, because most companies aren’t anywhere close to doing so. See, the mistake that is often made in customer service these days is that people are overlooking a vast amount of channels and resources through which the bulk of this communication can be handled and processed.

Unfortunately, it’s been difficult slow going to get people to understand that while a call center has its place, there are so many other viable ways that customer service staff can handle this problem, that can resolve issues that don’t belong on something as heavy handed as a phone call.

Your customer service staff have skills for working with some technology that you probably overlook, because they use this technology in their daily lives. That is, they use social networks heavily, most of the time. Few people don’t at least have a cursory Tumblr, Pinterest, Facebook or Twitter account they use at least monthly. They know how to use it, they know the lingo, even if they aren’t heavy users.

It’s as common as riding a bike, driving a car, or … using a phone! So, we can get the most out of our customer service by utilizing this vast repository of untapped skill to broaden channels, and make our customer service system not only faster but more convenient for everyone involved.