A couple of questions were asked around the subject of responding with a sense of urgency in customer service. Let's get practical and I hope you apply this in your business culture. Be sure to let us know the impact to your organization.

Q1. What Challenges do you face in “responding with a sense of urgency to the needs of your customers”?
Q2. Provide an example that is a best practice in your organization.

Q1. What Challenges do you face in “responding with a sense of urgency to the needs of your customers”?

A1. Trying not to over commit because of lack of immediate consideration of pending tasks or project timeline. While I try to give a 100% service satisfaction with a YES attitude, I tend to forget that I just did that with my previous customer and that there may be another one right after the current customer being served. So, looking at the big picture or the aggregate standpoint of my daily/weekly service scope, I need to ensure that my mental “Queuing System” is well managed so that I don’t create a bottle neck in my sense of urgency, which can jeopardize everything and cause bad commitment to customer, loss of customer trust/loyalty, and display of incorrect expectation to customers.

Q2. Provide an example that is a best practice in your organization.

A2. Clear communication is the key to responding with a sense of urgency. We should know how to make it practical enough so we can develop the methodical art of its execution. I suggest using the SMART concept in communicating our sense of urgency. So here’s the practical SMART roadmap you can use from our best practice:

Responding with a sense of urgency is not necessarily equal to providing the full answer/solution to the customer need right away. It’s not about the WHAT that needs done (it’s a given that it must be done and it will be done), it’s about the HOW it is communicated to be done. WHY? Because the customer’s clock on our execution starts the moment they are done communicating their needs. A common mistake we make is the lack of practical SMART response to the customer when the request is made. This creates a variance in perceptive executional timeline. Since we receive requests for service on an ongoing basis, we will need to apply some sort of mental queuing system to remain consistent with our promise on service delivery. Communicating the practical SMART action to the customer need would set the right expectation and synch up our clocks on service execution.

Case Study: You are getting ready to go to a conference room for a meeting that’s about to start in 10 minutes. Just before you leave your desk, a customer calls and needs something done (we’ll call it service request C because service A & B are pending execution on your list). Obviously, the full execution of Service C needs more than 10 minutes to perform. How do you then respond with a sense of urgency and still make it to the meeting in time? Let’s use the SMART concept:

Specific – Communicate your Initial response/promissory action bearing in mind what you already have in your plate.
i.e. “ Listen, I noted down your request, and I am going to launch the execution of your request right after my meeting.”

Measurable – Communicate how you will measure your short-time or first commitment.
i.e. “You should see an e-mail from me regarding this subject”

Actionable – Communicate how to get it done
i.e. “On my note, I will ask the appropriate team member (or vendor) to begin execution and keep me in the loop when done.”

Realistic – Make sure it’s not too much on your team or for you to do. Keep your mental queuing system going
i.e. “I believe we do have a couple of service requests pending; Other than that, I don’t see any solid constraints.”

Time-bound – Communicate when the first milestone or commitment will be done
i.e. “Good news is that I’ll let you know in an hour or so when all this should be done.”

When you get yourself in the habit of executing according to the above pattern, you will build enough consistency in the eyes of your customers. This will create trust and loyalty from your customers. 

Hopefully it wasn’t too long. Thanks and have a Happy Father’s Day weekend!

Once a mind is upgraded to a higher standard, there is nothing else left but the display of its tangible thoughts - different and effective results! Now, go on and change your Africa!

Stay blessed!

- Aa

Published by Wenze Team
- Courtesy of Alkatek, Inc. A Technology and Management Consulting firm based in Southern California. This article is published on Wenze.com as a way of helping African Entrepreneurs to think differently about the economic trends related to Africa and its Diasporas. Learn more about Corporate Africa


About Alkatek, Inc. 

Alkatek, Inc. provides office technologies and services that help companies gain efficiencies and capitalize on opportunities. Our entire organization is focused on the application of practical, innovative business solutions. We tailor solutions to meet our customers' need allowing them to remain focused on what they do best.