Customer Care ≠ Customer Service?

Do you see it as customer service or customer care?

In today’s world of increasing consumer choice, it seems the pendulum is swinging once again to individualized service.  The interesting thing is that even the big guys are catching on.  American Express has been working on a shift in thinking since 2005 when the new leadership decided that customer service wasn’t that at all.

Customer Service is a cost of doing business. Customer Care, however, is an amazing opportunity to connect with the customer.  As a matter of fact, AMEX doesn’t use a script if you call in.  They take some info about you and your spending patterns and empower their reps to have a conversation.  In interview by Fortune, an executive talks about this:

7% of customers…feel that they’re getting good service, 93% are not getting the service they expect.  It’s an enormous void in terms of how customers are treated.  What’s interesting, it’s a simple concept; it’s the golden rule…but that simplicity is often overlooked by other businesses.  The influence of a customer is at the center here, and we need to appreciate customer interests and the value it creates.

Wow! Is that how you see customer interaction?  Do you have the kind of people who would just have a “conversation” with the customer rather than reading a script?

Do your front-line people recognize the interaction with a customer as an opportunity for 93% or do they see the 93% of customers as unreasonable?

What actions are you taking to teach Customer Care? How do you get people to see every interaction as a proverbial “moment of truth?”  We’d love to hear about it.