 Listen
to the Language
I
called an electronics company last week to arrange repair
of our television. The automated answering system offered
these three options:
For Sales, press 1.
For Technical Support, press 2.
For the Office of Customer Delight, press 3.
I pressed 3 and was connected to a service professional who quickly took care of my needs.
What surprised me was not the polite efficiency of the staff, but the name of menu option 3!
Listen to this evolution (in many industries it’s happened quietly over several years): the Product Repair Center became the Product Service Center which became the Customer Service Center which was renamed the Customer Care Center which is now called the Office of Customer Delight.
Can you hear the difference? Of course you can. Language makes a difference!
What do you call the departments in your organization? The Office of Credit Control sounds quite different than The Department for Credit Approval. The financial criteria may be exactly the same, but the underlying attitude toward your customers is not.
Position titles also matter. Sales Manager is a common title, but how many customers want to be ‘sold’? Business Development Manager might be better, but business development is your company’s concern, not necessarily your customer’s.
So what should you call that important job
of closing sales and making deals? Guarantor of Client
Success? Bold Champion for Customer Value? Supreme Supervisor
of Spectacular Service?
How creative can you, or should you, try to be?
Key Learning Point
Department names
and position titles send clear messages to your customers
and your staff. Make sure your company language promotes
success and a customer-friendly point of view. Remember,
language makes a difference!
Action Steps
Review the names
of all offices, positions and departments in your organization.
What point of view is embodied in each? If your terms
are industry jargon, internally focused, customer unfriendly
or simply out-of-date, it’s time to make a change.
Note: This approach makes sense for people who have contact
with external customers, not necessarily for those who
work deep inside highly technical organizations.
For example, the person whose business card reads: ‘Technical
Software Specialist, XE73 Packet Switch’ should
probably be called just
that!
Next Article in Customer Service Perception Points >>
Can You Read Your Name?
First Article in Customer Service Recovery >>
What to do When Your Customer is About to Explode
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