Should customer service representatives (CSRs) be assigned to specific
customers, allowing them to establish a relationship and provide more personalized service? How
might this strategy impact customer profitability?
Requires Free Membership to View
When you register, you'll begin receiving targeted emails from my team of award-winning editorial writers on the latest customer relationship management (CRM)and call center technology issues today. Our goal is to keep you informed on the hottest issues facing this fast-changing industry.
Hannah Smalltree, Editorial Director
This is an excellent question, but what's really important is to have a strong philosophy and
culture that puts customers
and their needs first. Make it clear that the goal is to do what's right for the customer, to
be trustworthy with the customer and to treat customers the way we'd want to be treated if we were
customers. Then it's okay to have somebody different answer the phone each time. If I'm a customer
and I don't have to go through my whole story again just because I got a different person, it may
feel as though I'm being handled by the same person. The only exception to this might be if I have
a particular problem and it seems serious to me, then I might like to talk to the same person for
the next couple of days while we are resolving the issue. But in general, if the information is
being handled correctly, I wouldn't need to speak to the same person each time I call.
Hear more in Creating Customer Value, a SearchCRM.com monthly podcast series with Peppers and Rogers.
It's important to understand the difference between the relationship with the human being who is the CSR and the relationship with the company that makes it possible for the customer to reach a person who can help, even if that particular CSR might be on vacation or away from the phone or no longer with the company.
Hear more in Creating Customer Value, a SearchCRM.com monthly podcast series with Peppers and Rogers.
This was first published in June 2008