In your opinion, do you believe the customer service you get today from other companies is better or worse than it was say 5 years ago?
Yes, Customer Service is far better than 5 years ago. Customers became more educated and more demanding. On the other hand, companies do realize the importance of good customer service to retain existing customers, acquire new customers and win their loyalty.

Do you believe there is a correlation between the service you receive as a consumer and your loyalty to the supplier?
Definitely, there is a major relation between service and loyalty. I will not stay with a company that doesn't offer what I need when I need it or at least what I expect to get.

In your opinion, which industry sectors provide great service and which ones are poor? Great Service: Banking, Insurance
Poor: Telecom, Airlines

Can you recall a really good experience recently - where you were WOW'd by the service you received?
My bank started to offer a great "Proactive" service, which is proactively calling customers instead of waiting for customers to call. They call customers to activate their credit cards, they call customers who created beneficiaries to activate them, they call back any customer who called more than once to see if they had a problem and they call back customers who abandoned the calls while waiting in queue.

Talking about bad experiences, where do companies go wrong with the service they provide? Simply, they underestimate or don't realize the value of the customer. Some companies still don't realize that competition is just next door or even one call away.

Have you noticed any differences in service from people from different cultures?
Some cultures rely on emotions, other cultures rely on effciency and some other cultures rely on mechanically getting the job done with no relationship building.

If you had to give just 1 tip regarding the use of technology in relation to improving customer service, what would your tip be?
Get the technology that you need to improve your customer service. It doesn't have to be the most expensive or the most sophisticated, just what you need to make customer experience better.

If you had to give just 1 tip regarding staff in relation to improving customer service, what would your tip be?
You need to EMOWER your staff with the tools they need to offer a great customer experience, that includes authority, systems, skills, etc...

If you had to give just 1 tip regarding business processes in relation to improving customer service, what would your tip be?
When you design a process, it has to be end-to-end as some companies don't care what happens after the request leaves the Call Center and whether the customer request has been fulfilled or not. The Golden rule is End-to-End business processes, Detailed yet Efficient operational procedures, supported by Well Structured and Measurable SLAs.

In your opinion, how should contact centers measure the level of service they give? Please explain in detail.
There are several tools that indicates the level of service contact centers offer;
- KPIs: Such as SL, ASA, ATT, Abandoned Rates, etc...
- Quality: Call Quality Evaluation
- Customer Feedback through Customer Satisfaction Surveys
- Mystery Shopping exercises

Lastly, can you share with us one of the worst customer service experiences you have experienced recently?
My worst customer service nightmare is Inconsistency, I just hate it when my airline Call Center tells me that I can't do a certain transaction over the phone and that I need to visit one of their crowded offices while I know for a fact that it is possible and I have done it before.