The world today is measured in transactions per minute, resolution time, and other time bound metrics that determine whether others believe we are doing things well -- but what if I told you that taking more time to do something is actually better for efficiency in the long run? Contact centers, hotel front desks, even banks, can all benefit from taking more time rather than less.
The rationale is simple: If you rush, you make mistakes. Mistakes are costly, in both time and money, because they distract resources away from new transactions, and this can have a massive ripple effect all the way to the bottom line.
When I say mistakes, I mean more than just plain old errors (ordering the wrong product, mis-keying the customers contact details, or sending the wrong repair technician); I also mean all the little things that could and should have been done to totally satisfy the customer and resolve the issue completely. Everything from providing the customer with all the information they'd need so they don't have to call you back, to preemptive actions that could eliminate a recurrence of the problem in the future (like taking a few minutes to type a proper entry in the call log, or to fix a misspelling of the customers street).
Quite often people feel that by cutting edges they're actually doing everybody a favor because they can serve "more" customers, but the reality is that back-jobs and call backs chew up everyone's time and do no one any favors, so as the saying goes, "a job worth doing is worth doing well".
The conflict comes when management doesn't understand this, and people with spreadsheets and statistical models get to determine the path your company takes for delivering customer service. If you're old enough to remember the good old days when shop assistants would take a few minutes to talk with their customers beyond the basic "next please!", you'll remember the fantastic experience and great rapport that was built, and the loyalty that was generated from taking the time to do things right. We need to bring this back if we're to succeed in such a competitive marketplace and meet the demands of our well-informed customers.
I'm not saying that you should stretch every transaction out just for the sake of taking more time; this will just back fire on you; and I also realize that this "taking extra time" will be tough to do in your own job because of of the metric constraints I mentioned earlier. Yet if you put it into perspective, even just taking an extra 60 seconds with a customer can have a dramatic effect on their experience.
If your supervisors or managers push you, explain to them where you're coming from (even show them this article), and if they still don't get it, then, unfortunately, it means they aren't serious about customer service and maybe you should find a company that is, after all, businesses that don't embrace these cultural changes won't be around for much longer anyway!
Remember: with a customer, every second counts!
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