Customer service is like baking a cake
Who does not like cake? I believe that all or most of us enjoy a good cake, and although not everyone appreciates the recipe and the preparation process, everyone likes the result. And honestly, it doesn’t take much to know when a cake followed or not the recipe, as it will become too soft, or too hard, something wrong will happen, and just like in customer service, if you don’t follow a proven process with empathy and care, something might go wrong. But if you follow the recipe with great affection and attention, it can work.
When we start making a cake, we think of the recipe right away: three eggs, a few cups of flour, a spoonful of yeast and so on. When we think about customer service, it’s the same thing: we think of the phone extensions, email boxes, the language used and the directions to give the person on the other side. There is even a specific name for this: administrative manual of service. It contains all the “recipe” that, from an administrative point of view, is necessary to provide a good customer service. Everything mentioned above was written very thoughtfully by someone.
Do not worry, it is not a seven-headed animal. Making the service manuals is like writing a step by step: “if the customer wants to know the company and a product, put him through to the sales team” or “if the customer has a damaged product, put him through to the support team“. But if it is such a simple thing, what’s the point? Well, someday you will pass the recipe to someone, won’t you? And if maybe the current daily procedure is not working so well, you can always go back to the manual and see which step is not being followed correctly.
As the good bakers we are, we must select which ingredients to use, those with the best quality, and we do not want anything to go wrong, right? I’m talking about the resources that your company has and are available when opening your service channels. The best telephony systems, a WhatsApp business account, email accounts, anything you can use to communicate people in a functional way… these are the ingredients of your recipe. You do not need to have a million of them, just the necessary and use them in the best way possible, with affection, a smile, goodwill, patience and seeking all viable shortcuts to solve the customer’s problems in the fastest way.
So how can we measure our quality of service? Just as we know that it makes all the difference in the recipe to choose the best ingredient over the cheapest ones, in a good customer service the concepts are practically the same. You must have great resources and know how to use them. If when we exchange an ingredient in our cake we feel a difference in taste, when we give a good service, the positive feedbacks and projects appear almost in the same proportion. There is a big difference between who serves well, and who does not.
Not least, in addition to the unique flavor of the cake, let’s think about the shape, the décor and the topping, things that make a big difference in our experience. Those are what makes you unique in your customer service. There are those who prefer homemade cakes, stuffed cakes, with topping, two or more flavors, it does not matter. What matters is having a unique identity, a specific and attentive way of speaking, a detail that pleases people, that they feel so welcomed and happy, as well as – or close to it – when they eat their favorite cake. It is not necessary for them to know the preparation of your administrative manuals, your processes, and things like that, they feel good because somehow the service resulted in something, and it worked very well.