Ask an independent copier dealership what sets them apart and you get a consistent answer: “We deliver outstanding customer service.” There’s no question that the key value we bring is great customer service.
Excellent customer service is the lifeblood of growth, sales recruiting, and profitability. Dealer Principals depend on good service to keep clients renewing. Service Managers require excellent service to reduce re-visits and maximize customer satisfaction. Sales Managers find it easier to recruit reps to sell for a company that has a great service reputation.
What makes up excellent service? Here are some typical answers:
- Responding quickly.
- Stocking parts so machines can be fixed on the first call.
- Answering the phone with a live human being.
But here’s the challenge: buyers and influencers are changing. According to a recent New York Times article, the average age of an office worker is 42—but the average age of a network administrator is just 36.
And that’s the average age. That means many network administrators are in their 20s.
What younger customers want may be different than the traditional foundations of great customer service. Millennials want support online and instantly. They might view having to call you as a hassle, and prefer to chat online. They might not want to wait for your technician to show up. Instead, they might prefer to see a video that shows them how to resolve the issue themselves.
Today’s customer is digitally connected and mobile. As customer demographics get younger, many dealerships have not adapted. While the dealership may be providing a great support experience in the eyes of Baby Boomer leadership, younger customers may not feel as satisfied as you think they do.
The New Definition of Great Service: Customer Experience
Today’s customers aren’t looking for great service. They’re expecting a great experience.
The Harvard Business Review defines customer experience as follows:
The sum-totality of how customers engage with your company and brand, not just in a snapshot in time, but throughout the entire arc of being a customer.
As copier dealers, we need to consider how customers of all ages experience our dealerships. Consider how the customer service experience has changed in other industries:
- Banking: This industry has a rich legacy of smiles and handshakes. However, in the middle of a busy day, would you rather call the bank to find out your balance or check online? I can’t remember the last time I walked through the doors of my bank. I certainly don’t want to call them.
- Airport: The recent headlines about United show that the airline business has some huge service leadership issues. That said, I’ve been flying to visit dealers for 20 years, and in that time I’ve seen the service change drastically. Would you rather choose a flight on your computer or talk to a flight agent? Even if I wasn’t on hold for 10 minutes, I’d rather evaluate all of my options on a computer instead of trying to sort out flight details over the phone. And when I get to the airport I no longer look to the televisions for flight updates. Instead, I pick up my phone.
- Car Service: Getting my car serviced is such a hassle. I don’t have time to do it during the week. And I certainly don’t want to spend my Saturday sitting in a waiting room—even if it’s a nice waiting room with fresh coffee and leather seats. This week I noticed that Lincoln is upping their service game. Rather than making you schedule an appointment and sit in a waiting room, they will actually come pick your car up, service it, and then return it.
- Taxi: As a frequent traveler, I’m so thankful for Uber. Gone are the days of calling a cab, hoping they show up, not knowing the fare, and wondering if they take a credit card. Uber lets me request a ride, track the driver, see my progress toward the destination, and then pay online.
- Hotel: How frustrating is it to spend the day traveling and then have to stand in line to get your hotel room? With mobile check-in, I’m able to avoid the line. And in some hotels, my phone becomes my room key, allowing me to bypass the friendly front desk staff all together.
Can you see how customer expectations have evolved? The hard question we have to ask ourselves in the independent copier dealers world is this: how are we going to meet these new expectations? What if just answering the phone is no longer enough?
YOUR Dealership Experience
What kind of experience do your clients have with your dealership? Most likely you have a friendly, knowledgeable, and helpful staff. But in today’s world, you also have to consider your online service experience.
Where Are the Gaps?
As the Chief Marketing Strategist for Dealer Marketing, every day I have the opportunity to evaluate dealerships’ websites and social media. Most dealers haven’t scratched the surface yet in terms of providing a great online experience. We urgently need to fix this if we are going to continue to provide a great service experience for today’s digitally-connected customers. Following are a few gaps that I see:
Phone vs. Live Chat
I talk to dealer principals every day. At least 7 out of 10 brag, “We answer the phone with a live person.” In today’s world of 800 numbers, auto-attendants, and voicemail trees, this is undoubtedly a good thing. You don’t want to shuffle all of your callers to voicemail. However, do you have someone paying the same level of attention to clients that want to interact with you through your website?
Consider Microsoft’s recent research from their 2017 Global Services Report: “When engaging with a brand or organization for customer service, 65% of 18 – 34-year-olds’ interactions now begin online compared to 55% across all age groups and 46% of consumers ages 55+.”
Think about the way we communicate today. Texting is fast, easy, and convenient. Even my retired parents text messages. Why is texting to popular? If I make a phone call I have to commit an unknown block of time to that call. If I text, I’m committing less than five seconds.
Live chat allows you to serve website visitors with the same level of customer service they get on the phone. The same person that answers support calls can field live chat. Many times issues can be resolved remotely. If not, your service dispatcher can gather the details they need to place a service call over the chat message.
On-Site Training vs. Video Support
What if your customers didn’t have to wait for someone to come to their office to train them how to use the features on their machines? Instead, what if they could easily find support videos on your website that showed them how to change toner, remove a misfeed, or scan a document? Your service dispatch could also direct visitors to special videos during a live chat. Not only would this be tremendously helpful to customers, it could also reduce the need for on-site service calls.
Most OEM’s have a library of support videos on YouTube. Our team is currently working on a project to serve these videos up on dealer websites. The goal is to improve the client experience while reducing service calls.
Desktops vs. Mobile Phones
While over 50 percent of internet traffic comes from mobile devices, a typical copier dealer can expect about 15-25 percent of their traffic to come from mobile. Most of this traffic is going to customer service pages. The reason is simple: users walk up to a broken copier and pull out their phone looking for service.
How should you deal with this information? First, your dealership website must be mobile-responsive. It needs to function well on both desktop and mobile devices. Next, your mobile website needs to have the service links displayed prominently at the top of the page. Your phone number should also be there. Finally, click-to-call should be enabled, allowing a mobile visitor to call you just by clicking on your number.
Social Service
Here’s another interesting data point from Microsoft’s Global Services Report: 52 percent of 18-34-year-old consumers have used social media to ask a customer service question. What does that mean? Younger customers bypass traditional customer service channels and go to platforms like Twitter or Facebook to find answers to their questions. They also go to these platforms to vent their frustration.
Copier dealers need to start looking at social media as more than a marketing and selling platform. Sites like Twitter and Facebook are communication platforms that are deeply woven into our society. At a minimum, service dispatchers and managers should be logged into common social media platforms in order to pay attention to incoming messages. We find that it is becoming more common to find incoming messages from people looking for support.
Reactive Service vs. Proactive Service
The best service call is the one that doesn’t have to happen. Remote monitoring with tools like FM Audit, Print Audit, and Print Fleet allow you to monitor devices remotely so that you can resolve issues before they occur. As you master this skill-set, it flows naturally from printers into the entire network.
For many dealers, my fear is that service issues are being dealt with proactively, but the client is rarely notified of your great work. You need to make sure you get credit for the work you do. If you remotely mediate a service issue, you should tell your client about it. It lets them know you’re paying attention and delivering value for the service contract. If you don’t show that you provided service, how will they know that they need it?
Action Plan
What should you do?
1. Evaluate Your Online Customer Service Experience.
You may want to ask for honest feedback from some of your current customers. Pay special attention to how easy it is to place a service call from a mobile device. Identify areas for improvement in the online service experience and work with your web development and service management system teams to continually enhance the online experience.
2. Consider Adding Live Chat.
And if you do, make sure you have procedures in place to ensure it is monitored. There’s nothing worse than showing live chat as an option on your website and then not having anyone there to field questions.
3. Pay Attention to Social Media
Make sure your service managers and dispatchers are logged into your company Twitter and Facebook pages. You can also configure message notifications to go to their email, so nothing falls through the cracks.
As customer service expectations continue to evolve, make sure you consider the experience of today’s online, mobile workforce. We need to remember the service philosophy that got us here and find ways to adapt it so we meet the expectations of younger buyers. Making this shift will allow our channel to continue to shine as leaders in providing outstanding customer service.
