Without customers, Telefónica would be nothing; they are our main asset and our raison d’être. Our customers use our products and services and our duty as a company is to ensure that we look after our customers as best we can. Customer service is synonymous with interest, care, dedication, vigilance, observation, listening and analysis. All these aspects are necessary for proper customer service.
Since I started my professional career at Telefónica, back in 1996, I have dedicated myself body and soul to customer care in one way or another, both in the office and outside.
At the beginning in the customer service centre and later from CRM technology (‘Customer Relation Management’ (in Service Control, in Customer Experience, with face-to-face customer service from our flagship stores.
Also from another perspective, in Sustainability and Corporate Ethics working on the commitments acquired with our Responsible Business stakeholders or from Quality and Customer Experience in Satisfaction of our Major Customers, where I currently work, ensuring excellence to our major corporate accounts.
My entire professional life has been and is at the customer’s side.
To achieve good customer service we have to satisfy the needs of our customers and adapt internally if necessary, to achieve excellence in their service. In addition, the degree of customer satisfaction is related to their expectations of a service or product.
Yesterday I saw a video on Instagram about the cheapest accommodation in Cairo, the influencer boasted that he could sleep in the city on the Nile for €3, imagine what the room was like, his expectations were very low and any attention seemed extraordinary to him.
So the first rule for keeping a customer happy is that the product or service meets their expectations. If the customer finds what they are offered before buying, we have already won a lot. From this first moment, the customer experience has already begun.
From there, customer service will be in charge of attending to and supporting the customer throughout the customer’s life cycle with Telefónica.
The best customer service is the kind that doesn’t exist. ‘No news, good news’. If the customer doesn’t turn to us, it’s the best sign that we are fully meeting their expectations.
The importance of the customer journey
In addition, we can implement measures to achieve excellence in the customer experience, anticipating any possible demands they may have. For this, it is very important to define a precise customer journey, ‘customer journey’, and to be very clear about the customer’s entire possible trajectory or history with our product and our brand in order to be prepared for our customer’s needs.
This is exactly when we put ourselves on the line, it’s what we call a moment of truth.
When a customer comes to us, we have to offer them excellent service. Next, we will review the characteristics of good customer service.
- Easy contact and welcome
- Active listening to the customer to understand in detail their request or complaint, suggestion or disagreement.
- Involvement in the service
- Resolution as soon as possible
- Farewell and closure
- Follow-up
There are many indicators for measuring customer service that give us information about the quality of the service, from surveys carried out at the end of the service to indicators of the rate of cancellations, the number of complaints received, NPS indicators, based on measuring customer loyalty based on recommendations.
The best way to improve customer service is to prevent the customer from having to resort to the customer service department. If we take care to anticipate their possible needs, we will improve their experience with our products and services.
The best way to convey confidence in customer service is by keeping the promises we make to our customers. Observing that we deliver what we offer is the best guarantee of a successful relationship with the customer.
Excellent customer service turns your customers into fans of your company and binds them to your products and services for life, increasing trust and helping these loyal customers to consume more of your products and become potential advocates. On the other hand, a customer who has suffered poor customer service is dissatisfied and more vulnerable, may be more open to change, and is not an advocate, but may even be a detractor.
The role of technology
Technology is essential for proper customer service. Managing the customer relationship with CRM tools and other technologies helps us to identify the customer, to understand their customer journey and to anticipate possible requirements. It is of vital help at present and is in continuous evolution. Soon we will see how AI can help us in customer service and experience, many implementations have been with us for a long time such as voice recognition and machine/human interaction. At Telefónica we know a lot about this and we work together with technology to offer the best CRM solutions.
Finally, social networks have also changed traditional customer service. As well as being another service channel, they are a communication channel that can have a positive or negative impact on a company’s brand image. Social networks are immediacy and make news, whether positive or negative, fly in a matter of seconds. Good management of social networks together with service through these networks helps to mitigate possible crises in the event of incidents.
At Telefónica we are very customer-focused, all customers are your customers and as company employees we have internal tools to help us deal with incidents that we detect in our environment or that simply come to us because they are telephone-related.
In short, all customers are our customers, we work to offer excellence. The road is long, but we started walking a long time ago and the finish line is getting closer.
