We’ve all been approached by a customer service representative before.
But how many of us actually like it?
I think most business models make the assumption that more CSRs = better customer service. In reality, this is not entirely true. Think about all the times that you just wanted to quietly window shop, or the times that you just didn’t want to have to deal with people coming up to trying to hard-sell their products and asking with their not-so genuine tone ‘how are you today?’ or ‘what’s up man?’
What we as consumers hate – is being caught off by surprise. It’s just such a horrible feeling to have someone pops out of nowhere and starts selling a product that you never thought about buying it in the first place. Isn’t it so annoying?
Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying that a firm having CSRs is a bad strategy. Afterall, who are customers going to go to if they have a question about certain products? But I think the approach that most CSRs take simply needs to change. Instead of being there to hard-sell their products and trying to catch customers off their guard; make sure that your approach is a bit more subtle and direct. Come in from the front so that they know you’re coming, and genuinely ask about their day. Simply asking “How are you?” and following it up with “Would you like to know more about our product” is simply not enough in my opinion.
This relates to Seth Godin’s recent blog post (http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2010/09/do-you-actually-care-about-privacy.html) about privacy issues, and it has inspired me to think about examples where catching customers off guard is not a good thing.
