The Future of Customer Service
By: T.J. Tedesco
For: High Volume Printing
Published: June, 1999

Your sales representative introduces a new client to your business.  Your estimating department figures out the best way to run a job and you win it while protecting your margin requirements.  Manufacturing produces a good product on time, yet the customer is only “OK” with the job.  For some inexplicable reason your effort failed to “delight.”  Has this unfortunate sequence of events happened to you?

Our hyper-competitive graphic arts industry no longer is satisfied with good product quality, on time deliveries and fair prices.  Jobs need to “feel” right to earn the loyalty of major print buyers.  As our customers’ informational needs become nearly instantaneous, excellence in customer service, not sales, is what will drive customer satisfaction.  Given the way most companies are structured, customer service representatives and account managers are the employees best able to give quick answers.  As a response, some graphic arts companies are now training their sales representatives to be “killer account openers” and their customer service reps to be “super-servicers.” 

Outside Industry Influences

How did we get where we are?  We needn’t look far to find a great example.  Many printers do business with FedEx.  Can you imagine calling FedEx and having them say, “We don’t know where your package is - we’ll get back to you later?”  Instead, answers about your shipment are available 24-hours a day and in multiple formats (i.e., online and traditional customer service via phone).  Technology has made real time information the norm and those who think their customers expect anything less, regardless of industry, are mistaken.  FedEx’s creation of new service expectations has left an indelible imprint on American business.

Think of how your company’s service compares to FedEx.  Is your information flow nearly instantaneous, or must your customers do battle with your voicemail system to get answers?  Does our industry’s innate complexity make us different?  Or, do we avoid offering real time information because A) it’s difficult and B) our competitors don’t either?  Each of us should try to answer this significant question: “What will customer service excellence look like in five years?” 

In his new book Business @ The Speed Of Thought, Bill Gates, Microsoft Chairman, asserts that companies routinely overestimate the impact of change in a two-year forecast, but underestimate it in ten.  Although today’s customer service practices will probably be sufficient in the short run, the odds are good that they’ll be obsolete in the long run.  Companies like FedEx have raised the bar of customer expectation to “instant information gratification” status.  Our roadmap is clear.  Companies in hyper-competitive industries, such as printing, need to perform at the highest standards of American business to grow and thrive during the upcoming decade.

Information Clearinghouse

Customer service representatives and internal account managers should function as information clearinghouses.  Acting as an informational conduit between internal production and customers is essential.  Although providing instantaneous information isn’t always practical, service professionals should realize that rapid responses to even the smallest inquiries are now expected.  If your organization has voice mail, set standards for maximum reply time and let your customers know what they can expect when dealing with your company.

Make sure that job related information flows smoothly between all your departments, especially scheduling, production and customer service.  Companies with fiefdom managers instead of team players simply won’t compete effectively in the next decade.  An “open” style of information flow is essential to long term competitiveness. 

Bringing It Home

Printing companies should encourage their employees with significant customer contact to develop certain traits.  First, hire and nurture people that genuinely care about their customers.  Empathy is a key success factor.  Second, develop an information-first attitude to whatever you do.  “Bad” news rarely is a relationship buster unless customers discover the problem themselves after all reasonable options have evaporated.  News, regardless of whether it is good or bad, should be communicated instantly.  Accept as a given that no matter how good your customer communication system is, it probably isn’t good enough.  Third, be creative.  When something goes wrong, even a drastic step such as reprinting a job won’t necessarily appease the customer because his or her fundamental need hasn’t been met, namely, getting a good product on time.  In many cases, there is a low cost solution, but discovering it requires thinking outside of the box.

Since business must “feel” right, make sure your customer service staff is truly people-oriented.  Employees need to remain upbeat, regardless of the situation.  Empathy, understanding and accommodating dispositions are essential.  Let’s face it, problems happen.  While customers know that things may go wrong, they grade a printer’s performance on how they respond.  As long as problems don’t occur too frequently, real trust can be developed when customers see resolution creativity and exceptional effort.  Professional buyers know that companies offering solutions to problems are the ones that can be trusted.

Fanaticism to customer service doesn’t mean rolling over and losing money.  Instead, profitable companies channel their fanaticism into developing solutions.  Paradoxically, the best way to solidify a business relationship is to overcome a problem.  When business sails smoothly along, relationships aren’t tested.  Until they are, real trust doesn’t have an opportunity to develop. 

Not All Things Change

Back in the ’50s The New York Life Insurance Company had a line in their sales training manual that read:

“To sell John Smith what John Smith buys, you must see the world through John Smith’s eyes.”

This phrase is timeless.  The twist on the golden rule is, “do unto others as they would like to have done unto them.”  Just because something appeals to you or your people, doesn’t mean that it will to all your customers.  One buyer may only care that your printing matches a swatch of fabric, another may worry about flesh tones, another about on time deliveries and another about coming in under budget.  And, there are buyers who want to hide the fact that they don’t have a clue what they’re doing and don’t want to look bad to their bosses.  A skillful customer service person, in conjunction with their sales representative(s) should be able to understand what each customer’s hot buttons are and service all accounts appropriately.  (Incidentally, the John Smith quote above didn’t appear in the 1950s – it was the 1850s.)

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Smart graphic arts companies will focus on improving their customer service performance.  Industry expert Teri Nagy forecasts that the numbers of sales representatives won’t significantly change over the upcoming decade, but that the demand for customer service professionals will increase 25%.  Speaking for myself, I know that I’m encouraging my clients to take this challenge and the future of customer service very seriously.

T.J. Tedesco is a “hands-on” marketing, sales, coaching and training consultant to the post press industry. He is the author of Binding, Finishing & Mailing: The Final Word, and Win Top-of-Mind Positioning, both published by GATFPress and available at Amazon.com. T.J. can be reached at (301) 294-9900 or tj@growsales.com.