Feature

Customer service starts at home

HR departments can play a significant part in ensuring customer satisfaction says Vinutha V

Human Resources (HR) has evolved from being a department that merely takes care of employee appraisal, welfare and payroll management. It has become a critical part of dynamic management and an integral part of doingbusiness. With a customer-centric approach, a proper HR policy can give a positive thrust in areas such as project management, strategising and customer service. Meanwhile, traditional HR processes are being outsourced by corporates.

In the services industry, expertise, attitude and employee orientation are the key drivers of excellent customer service. HR acts as a catalyst to propagate these values from employees to clients. Eventually, customer satisfaction is based on the timeliness and the quality of service rendered by employees, which in turn depends upon their HR skills training.

Think local while recruiting

Right from the recruitment level, prospective employees are scrutinised for the ability to meet customer expectations. “Recruitment, induction and orientation of the best people as per the requirements of the customer will help deliver the best customer service,” says Rahul Varma, India HR director of Accenture. Both technical and soft skills are fundamental criteria while hiring candidates to meet customer expectations. Speed, and the ability to communicate and handle pressure, will aid in handling customers. “When we employ laterals—especially at the help desk—we look for candidates who have worked with French and European customers since we have those clients,” says Sabu Thomas, vice-president of HR at Netkraft. In addition, integration skills, orientation skills, customer-management skills and functional skills are also expected in candidates.

Know your customers

Training and development methods are becoming a science. With respect to customer service, HR is tailoring various training tools to provide effective service. Broadly, these tools offer internal customer concepts, behavioural training, dress code guidelines and soft skills. The process comprises tool assessment training, classroom training, on-the-job training and certification programmes. Says V Bharathwaj, assistant vice-president, sales and global marketing, 24/7 Customer, “Meeting customer expectations either through the front office or back office is very important. Unless employees know about the customer’s culture, behaviour and attitude, effective service will not be rendered.” It’s therefore imperative to ensure that employees learn about a customer’s geography, enterprise and vertical.

To assess a customer’s behavioural pattern, Apara Enterprise Solutions uses a tool called DISC to gauge the customer’s Dominance, Influence, Steadiness and Consciousness during interaction. “Since people usually fall into these four categories, we train our employees to interact accordingly,” says Prabhakar Chandrashekar, manager-HR, Apara.

Accenture uses an Internet-based tool called myLearning. This has been designed to serve as a starting point for an employee’s professional development. It gives employees access to a company’s vast learning resources about its customers, while recommending a personalised curriculum based on the role of the person. Further, it allows each person to customise it based upon point-in-time requirement and individual preferences. With a few clicks, an employee can access information and material available on the 15,000 traditional classroom courses, CBT (computer-based training), virtual classroom sessions, training resources and sessions by external vendors, and learning assets such as the Harvard Business Review online.

These tools will help in handling dissatisfied and angry customers. “The right training is a vital component in serving customers. Training and development, both in technical and behavioural management, is mandatory,” says Varma.

Fun-filled motivation

Training without motivation may not be effective. Motivation is something required by every employee at all levels of service, especially while dealing with customers who are often unknown to the employee. To boost the morale and interest levels, HR must come up with innovative motivational processes. Comments Greg D’Souza, vice-president of HR at vMoksha Technologies, “Employees can be under stress, and they need continuous moral support. A motivated employee will always serve customers better and enjoy his work. This can be achieved by encouraging competitive and fun-filled games.”

Boot Camp is an internal motivational method of 24/7 Customer, in which employees are taken to the residential campus to spend their leisure time. According to Bharathwaj, in such a situation there will be a free flow of thoughts and exchange of ideas which can improve the efficiency of the company. In the case of a BPO company, meeting customers face-to-face will be additional encouragement. The HR department in many companies insists upon employees meeting customers to make customer service more efficient. External trainers are hired to boost employee morale. Several organisations allow staff members to act as customers as part of fun-filled games which can lead employees to understand the problems of customers.

Recognising good work

A motivated worker can give his best, and this needs to be recognised. Rewards, holiday facilities and celebration of achievements demonstrate concern for employees. Says Thomas, “We have special programmes to recognise and celebrate achievements of employees for rendering good customer service.” Adds Bharatwaj, “There are instances where our customers have recognised good work, and invited our employees to spend a few days in their country.”

Role models

Recognition programmes and processes, communication, and support systems and services to promote a congenial environment reflect the vision of an enlightened company. This vision should be communicated to customers and also percolate down to employees at the bottom of the corporate ladder. “Customer service and employee satisfaction go hand-in-hand. Once the senior management owns its employees, the employees in turn learn to own the company’s customers,” adds D’Souza. Along with bringing good policies and processes, senior management should encourage exposing employees to customers. Employees look up to role models, and finding one among the senior management can work wonders for a company.

HR as family head

“HR can be called the post-mortem department when it comes to customer service. It is here that the aspirations of employees and expectations of customers meet,” says Thomas. Some internal surveys conducted by companies have shown that more than 50 percent of issues relating to customer service depend on HR. Client dissatisfaction mainly comes from poor delivery, which is because of the poor quality of HR. The department can overcome such challenges by keeping itself abreast of the latest practices and methods with regard to customer service. “After all, HR is like a family head where the requirements of other members are met by giving a good support system,” concludes Bharathwaj.

HR and customer satisfaction

At the hiring stage itself, the recruitment manager must ensure that only those people are hired who have the correct attitude. Correct hiring is considered to be the first and most critical step in building a customer-friendly company. Those who deal directly with customers be optimistic, flexible, be capable of handling stressful situations and dealing with criticism without feeling emotionally upset. A healthy work culture can go a long way toward making employees happy. Research has proved that a happy employee makes a customer happy. It is therefore the responsibility of HR folk to create a transparent work culture within an organisation. Building internal relationships is yet another factor. Only those organisations which have excellent internal relationships can have great relationships with their customers. A top-driven, autocratic corporate culture with poor internal communication upsets customer relations. HR can do a lot to help create an environment that nurtures good service and customer relationships. Skill identification and providing the necessary training to bridge any skills gap is a key function of the HR department. The right training and coaching are critical inputs for customer satisfaction. The cost of acquiring new customers is five times higher than the expense of servicing existing ones. It is therefore always wiser to invest in those people who can make the customer happy.