Truck Parts and Service | Heavy Duty Trucking, Aftermarket, Service Info
Issue link: https://read.dmtmag.com/i/476956
16 Cover Story A solution is not always immediate, but for a cus- tomer facing downtime, speed matters. The amount of time and team members needed to fi nd a solution typically varies depending on the customer's request, says Sarah Rogers, marketing specialist at Reyco Granning. According to Rogers, sales and customer service employ- ees at Reyco Granning are educated on problem solving as part of their customer service training, and are given authority to respond immedi- ately to as much feedback as possible. Rogers cites a shipping or ordering mistake as one area where Reyco Granning's cus- tomer service team is capable of an immediate response. "That [type of request] doesn't need to be escalated to anyone else," she says. "When our [customer service] people receive a call like that they know who to contact within our operation to address the issue so a new order is placed at that time." A similar strategy is in place at BorgWarner Thermal Sys- tems, where customer service and sales people provide the fi rst line of defense when han- dling all feedback, says Richard Harrold, national fl eet and aftermarket sales manager. "With our primary prod- ucts all of our people are trained so they can answer most of the questions we receive," he says. "When questions become more technical in nature, we have them transfer those questions to our technical support line where our engineers assist" the customer. In both cases the compa- nies note their goal is to fulfi ll the customer's need during the fi rst interaction. Return calls are acceptable, but the businesses believe customers have a better experience when it only takes one call or con- versation to solve a problem. "That's what we try to do," says TA/Petro's Jim Reed, vice president of truck service marketing and recruiting. "When a person who receives a customer request is able to handle it, or knows who to contact in order to handle it, we tell them to take care of the customer at that time." Adds Sherbourne: "The worst thing is having a customer on hold and not knowing who to ask for help. You can't waste the customer's time like that." Yet not every customer request can be solved in minutes. In these situations, keeping a customer apprised of progress in solving their issue is incredibly important. A customer issue that can't be repaired in one conversa- tion cannot be forgotten. "We know how impor- tant it is to [our customers] that we respond in a timely manner," says Lessie Hoover, customer service support and training manager at Michelin. "We don't want them to feel they're waiting for us." "It's not always going to be one [call] and done," says Macpherson. And when it's not, she says Haldex has stan- dards in place to escalate an issue and help get it resolved. Among these bench- marks are requirements that customers are notifi ed on a regular basis of progress made in addressing their feedback and questioning them about T R U C K P A R T S & S E R V I C E | M a r c h 2 0 1 5 One of the main reasons customers offer feedback is because they want to help a business improve. Which is why even though it's predominantly negative — "we operate under the belief no news is good news," says BorgWarner's Richard Harrold — customer feed- back should always be recorded. Haldex's Liz Macpherson says her company has methods in place for its sales and customer service teams to ensure they take good notes when receiving customer feedback. These requirements include recording all pertinent customer information (name, business, phone number, etc.), the entirety of their issue and a timeline for solving the problem. This keeps the Haldex team on point when addressing the current problem; and also can be valuable when tasked with similar issues in the future. "Just because a solution is dis- covered for one customer doesn't mean there aren't others who also could benefi t from it," she says. Always take notes When building a customer service team, its important to hire positive, outgoing people who can withstand customer issues and provide helpful service.