What is Customer Service?

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Why is Customer Service Important?

FORMA Customer Service Core Pillars 

1.    Respond as quickly as possible

• Several years ago, STELLAService conducted a response time report and found that the average email response time for the top 100 retail companies was 17 hours. Today, it's not much better as own customer service study found that the average response time is 12 hours.

            Case Study: 

2.    Know your customers

• Great interactions begin with knowing your customers wants and needs. Customers love personalization. 
• Get to know your customers, remember their names and previous conversations. 
• If needed, make a note of what was discussed previously so you can refer to it the next time you meet.

Case Study:

• In January 2020, Starbucks launched their "Every name's a story" campaign focusing on improving relationships with their customers. The award winning campaign promotes inclusivity, recognition and acceptance at Starbucks stores across the world. The video, a focal point of the campaign, has generated more than 2.8 million views

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3.    Fix your mistakes

• Not taking responsibility of your mistakes is a sure fire way to getting a bad reputation. 
• Transparency is important in business and customer service is no different. 
• Always strive for a high quality output as it shows you have a high level of standards.

Case Study:

• An Amazon customer ordered a new PlayStation for his son for Christmas. When the shipping company delivered the parcel, the customer was away and had a neighbor sign for the package. The neighbor left the package outside the customer’s house and unfortunately, it soon disappeared. When the customer realized what had happened, he was left in complete shock!
• Even though Amazon was not to blame for this mistake, they were quick to resolve this by not only sending a new PlayStation in time for Christmas, but did not charge for the extra shipping.
• The Customer Success team at Amazon showed great empathy here towards the customer. Rather than sticking to their refund policy, then chose to do good. And that's what matters most.

4.    Listen to your customers

• Listening to your customers will not only result in an indebted and happy customer, it can also go a long way in terms of keeping yourself on their radar for future business.
• “If you want to deliver great service, you should listen to your customers. Of course, it’s easier said than done. The difficult part is acknowledging feedback and learning from it. Most companies ignore feedback.” 

Case Study:

• A three year old named Lily Robinson wrote a letter to a UK grocery store asking why ‘tiger bread was called tiger bread and not giraffe bread?’. Lily was clearly onto something, as the bread really does look like a giraffe print!
• In most cases, these types of suggestions are met with a simple "Thank you".
• To Lily’s surprise, Chris King, the customer service manager responded with “I think renaming it to giraffe bread is a brilliant idea!”. Several months later, the bread was renamed to giraffe bread.

5.    Think long term – A customer is for life

• Think long term when dealing with customers. By keeping customers happy, they will be loyal and through word of mouth, will do the marketing for you. In fact, according to author Pete Blackshaw, a satisfied customer tells at least three friends (whereas an angry customer tells 3,000!)
• Providing good service for our customers is not only about receiving high satisfaction scores or solving a high number of support requests.  
• Our main focus is simple - to help others. Always. 
• Good service can be interpreted differently by every single person. 
• Our goal is to build long-term relationships, because in the end, this is what matters and we truly hope that our customers feel it.

How to Approach Order Issues

Response Format Example

Hassle Free (1st offense)

Hi NAME,

Thank you for contacting BRAND!

We’re so sorry to hear about ISSUE.

We’d love to make this as simple as possible and help better your experience today!... 

One Time Courtesy (2nd offense) 

Hi NAME,

Thank you for contacting BRAND!

We’re so sorry to hear about ISSUE.

We understand that this has been a less than ideal situation and you have experienced this recently as well. We’d love to help better your experience and we will go ahead and RESOLUTION as a one time courtesy. 

We take experiences like yours very seriously and we will document your account to help prevent this moving forward. Please note, in the future we might not be able to process this request again…

No More (3rd offense) 

Hi NAME,

Thank you for contacting BRAND!

We’re so sorry to hear about ISSUE.

We understand that this has been a less than ideal situation. After reviewing this further, we see on DATE the same experience was reported.  A courtesy __ was issued and unfortunate we are not able to accommodate another __ …

Order Issue Matrix

CallCare: It is of the upmost importance to protect ourselves from customers trying to take advantage of our generous return policy. To thoroughly understand the customer's behavior, search Shopify for other orders associated with Shipping Address. If more than 1 accommodation has been made in the past, this is not the customer's 1st offense and the issue should be escalated.