The unfair OSS advantage

My wife and I attended a Christmas party over the weekend and on the trip home we discussed customer service. In particular we were discussing the customer service training she’d had, as well as the culture of customer service reinforcement she’d experienced via leaders and peers in her industry. She doesn’t work in ICT or OSS (obviously?).

In our industry, we talk the customer experience talk via metrics like NPS (Net Promoter Score). However, I don’t recall ever working with a company that provided customer service training or had a strong culture of reinforcing customer service behaviours. Some might claim that it’s just an unwritten rule / expectation.

Conversely, some players in our industry go the opposite way and appear to have the mentality of trying to screw over their customers. Their customers know it and don’t like it but are locked in for any number of reasons.

As OSS implementers, the more consistent trend seems to be a culture of technical perfection. I know I’ve dropped the ball on customer service in the past by putting the technical solution ahead of the customer. I feel bad about that on reflection.

Perhaps what we don’t realise is that we’re missing out on an unfair advantage.

As Seth Godin states in this blog, “Here’s a sign I’ve never seen hanging in a corporate office, a mechanic’s garage or a politician’s headquarters:
WE HAVE AN UNFAIR ADVANTAGE:
We care more.

It’s easy to promise and difficult to do. But if you did it, it would work. More than any other skill or attitude, this is what keeps me (and people like me) coming back
.”

Could it be a real differentiator in our fragmented market?

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