Amazon’s mission is to be Earth’s most customer-centric company. And its customer service team plays a key part in that mission. Their customer service team has a very clear purpose – to prevent, solve problems and delight customers. The customer service team has a culture that puts customer needs first and tries to not just reduce customer effort, but completely eliminate it.
A service culture is where employees are obsessed with delighting their customers through their actions, communication, engagement and experiences they deliver. Companies that embrace a service philosophy genuinely care for their customers. The risk of doing business with such companies is very low, and customer satisfaction is a key factor to measure company success.
The adoption of service philosophy provides a huge competitive advantage to businesses. Customers find these companies are a joy to do business with. This philosophy needs to be prioritised, nurtured and actively driven by leadership as a key value in the company. This will ensure employees are aligning to this core idea of delighting their customers.
How can employees adopt a customer service mindset in their work? A simple aspect of Storytelling can help with this.
Putting Customers First
Many of the Storytelling frameworks are based on depicting the customer as the hero of the story. This fundamental way of thinking is a key to building a service culture. This way of thinking helps empathise better and understand the needs and issues of customers.
All heroes have a problem that needs solving. In most stories, the hero is trying to neutralise an enemy, fight societal prejudices or make ends meet. Your customer, too, has problems that your product or service can solve. They are trying to save time, reduce costs or manage resources better.
When you position the customer as the hero and your company as the enabler, you establish your company as a trusted and sought after character in the hero’s (customer’s) journey.
Coming back to the Amazon example, their service philosophy and culture puts the customer in the hero’s position. This reflects in their processes and policies. Amazon empowers their customer service agents to use their judgement in resolving customer complaints. This reduces the time it takes to resolve issues. The process to escalate queries is simple, and shortens the wait time for customers. These visible aspects stem from one of the core principles at Amazon – putting the customer in the centre.
How to Use Storytelling in Customer Service
A service culture need not be limited to customer service and support teams. In fact, a customer-centric culture adopted by all employees can prove to be a unique differentiator in the market.
Keeping the customers in the center, you can define how you can delight them by considering these factors:
- What are your customers trying to achieve with their purchase?
- What frustrations do they experience during and after the purchase?
- How can you eliminate obstacles in their path so that they get what they need/want?
- How are customers making buying decisions?
- What else can you change to provide a delightful experience to the customer?
A quick and easy step to improve your company’s service culture is by adopting the storytelling approach in customer service training.
About The Author
Vinod Krishna is founder and storytelling coach at DustyPaths. His work focuses on forging new paths in storytelling, communication and leadership development.
Connect with him on LinkedIn