Customer Service Cuts Redux: Why Don't CFOs Get It?
Posted by Hoyt Mann on Wed, Mar 11, 2009 @ 08:37 PM
Boy, the articles are coming fast and furious regarding the, shall we say, "old-fashioned paradigm" (read: Not such a bright idea.) that customer service and support is a cost center making it an easy target for layoffs.
Never mind the fact that customer retention and customer service are married to each other and when one goes south, the other flies away too. Or that the more customers retained the better the bottom line.
This time it is from Donna Fluss of DMG Consulting, a firm specializing in customer focused business strategies. In her article Don't Let Customer Service be a Casualty of the Recession in the DMG newsletter "The Real Time Contact Center", Ms. Fluss lays it all out. She has statistics from the Department of Labor showing a loss of 1.6 million jobs in three months time (November 2008 through January 2009). Her firm estimates that 80% of companies have or will decrease headcount in customer service or contact center staff with the observation that "Unfortunately, many CFOs perceive contact centers as being staffed with expendable, not-highly-trained employees."
In addition, she notes that during times like a recession the contact center and customer service desks are probably fielding more calls than ever. So with decreased staffing and increased call volume, customers are forced to wait longer and wind up talking to unhappy agents. Recipe for disaster, customer retention-wise.
Meanwhile, Robert Half International says that in this economy one of the most requested types of temp workers is customer service representatives. But why not simply keep the trained service agents you already have? The ones who already know how to keep your customers happy and coming back?
As Donna Fluss stated, "if a company puts customers first when times are bad and they are in need, customers will put the company first when times are good." Keep your customers happy by keeping your customer service staff happily employed.
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