Interview: Steve Macaulay
How to Improve Your Customer Service
Dawn Richardson
Hello, I am Dawn Richardson and I am in the studio today with
Steve Macaulay to discuss his book How to Improve Your Customer
Service.
So Steve, an obvious question, how do you improve customer
service?
Steve Macaulay
I think the answer is it is pretty complicated; I see it as a jigsaw of a
whole set of things – skills, processes, attitudes, procedures,
culture. Now I see the important thing is to look at the front line
and say that is where the customer sees customer service in action,
so my belief is to put the jigsaw together you need some
leadership, but you also need plenty of frontline skills that stretch
back into the organisation.
Dawn Richardson
Can you just tell us what are the key themes for the book?
Steve Macaulay
I think there are three main themes: now, one of them is one you
would expect and that is about the interface with the customer and
I think there are whole set of things that create an image, right
from the processes if you ring through, for example, through to
signs, through to letters you get or the website. So there is a
whole set of things there.
But there is also plenty internally and I have called it Leading Your
Team Resourcefully because it is about putting those together,
solving problems, process improvements, team work, skills. Now
they fit together and they need to fit together with the customer in
mind.
The last one is about individuals and personal management.
Dawn Richardson
Can you explain the rationale for us please?
Steve Macaulay
Yes, I think what we are trying to do is to say don’t just look at the
front end, look back into the organisation and then piece it
together under some leadership. I think in the end you need some
customer focused leadership. One of the companies that I worked
with said well why aren’t we getting more customer focus? And
they answered it when they spoke to the individuals who said the
things we really get measured on are the finances in the shops. So
they started to change that and to put the customers at the top of
the agenda, for instance of every team meeting. And that started
Steve Macaulay
to change things. So it is really is about putting a customer focus
and welding it all together.
Dawn Richardson
It is unusual to have such a large section on self management in a
customer service book; can you just explain that for us?
Steve Macaulay
Yes, I think you are right and I think consciously I said to myself,
look there is plenty of material about how you deal with the skills
of handling complaints, how you deal with negotiating problems
and so on and processes, but in the end the customer service job is
quite a lonely job. Some people see it as a road of endless
problems and individuals feel that. They feel the stress
sometimes; they are often experiencing very high volumes so I
have included some stuff on stress management.
The other one is about priorities; there is a constant barrage of
urgent things and it is sorting out the priorities in that.
And lastly, it seems to me that career management is important,
that people can get hooked up almost in a factory atmosphere. If
you are in a call centre, for example, you need to feel this is going
somewhere, you need to feel you are being developed; you need to
understand what you need to develop to forward your career.
Dawn Richardson
Finally Steve, can you just give us a few hints on what is excellent
service?
Steve Macaulay
I think it is a difficult one, as I said right at the beginning. I think
one of the key things seems to be to be good about customer focus
throughout the whole organisation, not just the front end. It is
tempting to say well we have trained up our customer service
people, everything will be alright. But you need to look internally
at things like the internal customer, for instance. Everybody serves
another customer to serve the end customer. So I think that is
quite important to do that and to work with objectives that are
customer focused.
Now another one – I said earlier on that people experience quite a
bit of pressure and stress and so on – I think teamwork is
important. So consciously developing that ability to work
together, to support each other, to give each other information.
I think you need to keep the customer in mind at all times; I think
you need to understand what the customer needs. And that
comes on to this area of development and change, and I do think
that we live in a world of constant change – you need to keep up to
date with what the customer wants and you have got to translate
that. And it will mean something to the individual; they have got
to keep changing, keep being up to date with information.
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Steve Macaulay
One of the worst things that can happen to a customer service
person is if a customer knows something that the customer
services representative doesn’t – so good information flows.
Dawn Richardson
Thanks, Steve.
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