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Opinion:Leadership on customer engagement

Politics
Leadership is important to drive an effective Customer relationship management (CRM) in any institute. I (JN) had to talk to Benson Mukandiwa (BM)

Leadership is important to drive an effective Customer relationship management (CRM) in any institute. I (JN) had to talk to Benson Mukandiwa (BM)

By JONAH NYONI

Benson Mukandiwa CMgr MCMI is a Chartered Manager and Member of the Chartered Management Institute (CMI), he evangelises customer management around the world through keynotes, articles, tweets and his books, including best-selling Customer and Employee Satisfaction.

Acknowledged by a coterie of affiliates and professionals as a customer service strategist, consumer psychologist and expert, business analyst, author, research fellow in customer management and editor-in-chief for The Customer Magazine the CICM Global’s official bi-monthly magazine which is distributed across Africa. According to Who is Who in Southern Africa Benson has displayed remarkable talent in his field of expertise and, as a result, has significantly contributed to the Southern African social, cultural, political and economic landscape.

Other professional fraternity membership and certifications include: Executive Member of Customer Success Association (Exec.MCSA); Fellow Chartered Institute of Customer Relationship Management Africa (F.CICRMA); Fellow Chartered Institute of Customer Management (F.CICM); Fellow Zimbabwe Institute of Management (F.ZIM), Member Customer Relationship Management Institute (M.CRMI); Fellow Marketers Association of Zimbabwe (MAZ Fellow); Member International Association of Facilitators (M.IAF) and Member of International Institute of Business Analysis (M.IIBA).

JN: With your experience in Customer Service Training, are corporate leaders fully embracing customer service in Zimbabwe? Or to what extent are we as Zimbabwe?

BM: Without a doubt Yes! The importance of good customer service has grown in developing countries (in Zimbabwe to be specific), while good service has always been at the heart of business success, the world is a far more competitive place today than it was yesterday.

And it will be more so tomorrow. It’s really not easy for businesses to compete on price anymore, so definitely corporate leaders have to find other ways of differentiating their brands from their competitors — and customer service is the one sure-superb way of doing that.

According to the recently published survey results; the Zimbabwe Customer Satisfaction Index (ZimCSI), an independent economic indicator based on modelling of customer evaluations of the quality of goods and services purchased in Zimbabwe; the National Index was staggered at 70,2%. This means that more customers found in Zimbabwe are happy with the services they are receiving from their current service providers.

Never-the-less there is need for leadership paradox shift especially on addressing the paradox of whether customer service training is a cost or an investment. The second paradox is of the question who matters most, internal customer versus external customer.

JN: Tell us, is it important to train all employees on customer service excellence or it’s just for frontliners?

BM: Training is essential to every individual in the organisation from the CEO to the general assistant. Despite what some companies may still think, customer service and customer experience are actually two very different things, but the two ingredients blended are epitomised by excellence in service delivery.

The overall customer experience is what stays with the customer and will ultimately decide if they will come back to you or recommend you.

The customer service clearly plays an important role in the customer journey, whereas customer service can often be pinpointed to a specific department or individual, customer experience is the responsibility of everyone at the company. Customer service can often be about one single point in time and is usually reactionary. Customer experience is the sum of all interactions and is more feeling-orientated than problem-orientated and is a more proactive experience.

Customer experience is an emotional connection of how the customer perceives your brand and ultimately is not something you can control. You can though try to shape that experience into a positive one by engaging with the customer. This could be through social media, surveys, ad campaigns or direct interaction. This customer engagement is what helps you keep a customer and gets them coming back to you on a regular basis.

JN: How significant is company leadership especially in embracing customer service?

BM: In Customer Management we use the term Customer-Focused Leadership. Customer Focus is an aligned approach by leadership of an organisation who essentially take a company-wide approach to customer satisfaction and service, leading to customer loyalty and advocacy. The long-term result is sustainable profitability. Company top leadership are people who make an impact.

In this fast-paced technological world everything else may indeed be changing, but in the end, it is still a world where everything rises and falls on leadership. The most important thing for any business to remember is that “customer service” is not a noun, it’s a verb. One has to be doing it, not saying it; and how you deliver the service matters most. It is best to focus more on delivering positive experiences.

Know what customers actually want then focus on getting them to get value for money. Loyal customers know they can depend on your brand as a reliable, trustworthy, and competent business that appreciates them.

JN: Talking of CRM technologies, where are we as a country?

BM: Though it is a bit tricky to place it in percentage terms to benchmark with global trends; the fact is that the internet is becoming more and more important in business life, many brands consider it as an opportunity to reduce customer-service costs, tighten customer relationships and most important, further personalise marketing messages and enable mass customisation.

Everywhere you look these days you see “everybody.com” and “e-everything” and this made CRM to undergo evolution towards the Web. Many firms have developed business database that contain interactions data on prospects as well as customers. The coming in of new technology has brought in immerse benefits to many organisations, the use channels like electronic mails, voice call facilities, traditional letters and text messaging as well as websites to enhance customer service in Zimbabwe is significantly commendable. JN: Tell us about the software available that could be adopted in Zimbabwe? Give us examples of software relevant to different service sectors.

BM: It is very key to mention that when it comes to software, technical professional guidance is needed first hand from the experts. From a customer management perspective brands must focus on CRM software that helps companies to automate all customer-facing processes while improving visibility and communication across an entire organisation. So in essence the key question is “What are the greatest CRM features that can make for example either sales or investment businesses benefit from using them?” Instead of mentioning brands, I encourage prospective users of CRM software to keep the following list in mind while choosing a suitable CRM solution for your company:

A reliable document management system; whether it be in the cloud or on your firm’s server, it is important that the company properly secures sensitive customer information.

lSales leads and opportunity management; this feature lets you focus on your most promising opportunities, and leads you to achieve your sales target goals successfully.

lAnalytics; CRM system should provide businesses with access to decision-making analytics. It is important to properly analyse the prospect’s data and be more efficient in building investment strategies. That is why it is not enough to collect data, there should be proper analytic tools to help make sense of all of the data and how to use it to invest successfully.

In any business space, client loyalty is paramount.

JN: What’s your final word of encouragement in line with best customer service practices?

BM: Brands need to focus on creating successful strategies encompassing customer service, customer experience and customer engagement. A successful strategy would see these three areas interact with each other very closely. Your customer service should expand beyond the simple reactive role of the past. Your support should be assisting your customers throughout the journey, before they purchase, during and afterwards.

Your agents will need to be empowered to go above and beyond with customers to help create winning experiences. You might want to look at assigning metrics to each of these areas. For example, when it comes to customer service you might want to look at overall customer satisfaction ratings or perhaps collect ratings against specific sales agents.

For customer experience, you might want to look at metrics such as Net Promoter Score which will give you an indication of how the customers perceived their overall interactions and the result this has on the likelihood of them recommending you.

You could also look at things such as customer retention rate, customer value over a certain time or customer acquisition. When it comes to customer engagement you should decide what areas you feel are most important for your business to engage with your customer.

This could be social stats based on engagement metrics, it could be newsletter opens and clicks or actions on your website. The more engaged your customers become the more these metrics should be increasing. All three areas should be personalised and consistent across all channels to achieve maximum impact.