Customer Service in

the Retail Revolution

Customer Service in the Retail Revolution 02

Retailers deeply understand the direct impact

customer service experiences have on business
outcomes. Modern technology has created
drastic changes for both shoppers and stores.
Online stores, social media, mobile shopping, and
shopping apps have all impacted the way retail
companies interact with their clientele, markedly
increasing the focus on customer service within an
industry that has always excelled in this area.

This paper, based on 15 interviews with customer

service leaders around the world, examines
practical implications for retailers operating
with heightened customer expectations in an
environment that is more global, and public, than
ever before. We examine both the opportunities
presented and the challenges faced by modern
retail technologies and trends, with a specific
focus on social media, holiday shopping, and
customer advocacy.
Customer Service in the Retail Revolution 01

RETAIL: A TRADITION
OF CUSTOMER SERVICE
“The customer is always right” was a philosophy a vital personal connection to the ever changing
of customer service championed by famous wants and needs of buyers.
retailers including Marshal Field and Harry Gordon
Selfridge, both founders of the department store These evolving buyer expectations have created
chains named for them. At the time, the prevailing both a challenge and an opportunity for modern
attitude towards customers was buyer beware, so retailers. Experiences with online services that
this philosophy of treating customer complaints let you place an order one day and have the
seriously was a refreshing change. product on your doorstep the next have set a very
high bar, while social media enables unhappy
Throughout the last century, the retail industry customer complaints to have a greater audience
continued to lead in delivering customer service than ever before. On the flip side, because buyers
excellence. Nordstrom frequently hear these
gained fame for their “The customer service piece of our business complaints and have terrible
extreme customer is how we stay ahead of our competitors – customer service interactions
service, including the knowing what went right and wrong and then themselves, receiving an
frequently told making adjustments to delight our customers amazing experience can
anecdote of a and drive more business.” be a delightful surprise
customer in Alaska that they talk about and
who was allowed to return a set of automobile can spread widely, resulting in a very positive
tires for a full refund­—even though the store has business outcome.
never sold tires!
This paper examines the practical implications for
Today, customer service remains a key customer service teams dealing with this retail
differentiator in an increasingly crowded and revolution. We examine the real life experiences
competitive retail landscape. As technology with modern retail technologies and trends of 15
has enabled retailers to reach broader and more individuals from around the world responsible for
diverse audiences, customer service delivers delivering customer service in a retail environment.
Customer Service in the Retail Revolution 02

SOCIAL MEDIA
The most important trend impacting any It is a very positive thing about our culture, and it
customer service organization today is social certainly makes life easier for my team. However,
media. Twitter, Facebook, and hordes of online if a customer is unhappy we need them to tell us
comment sites have given every customer a so we can do better. It’s a regular occurrence that
megaphone for sharing both their displeasure we close a ticket with a customer who has been
and their happiness. Retail is no exception. In very polite and said thank you, but then find out
interviews with customer service managers, later that they’re not happy. We usually find out
each talked about issues their teams are facing, because they told their friends, or even worse,
and the steps they are taking to capitalize on the never find out about it. With social media we have
positive aspects of these very public interactions, a chance of finding out about what we’re not
while mitigating downside effects. doing right and then we have an opportunity to
fix it for them or the next customer.”
The bottom line is that
no one can hide bad “Customers won’t bash you on social media An ongoing challenge for
customer service in if they’ve been delighted. Our best strategy customer service teams
a social media world. for making social media work is to is working out the best
Giving great service, do a great job, same as always.” place in the organization
always a requirement to be responsible for social
in retail, has become an absolute imperative. media. While customer service teams are skilled
to react quickly and do what is right for individual
Adam, a customer service manager for a customers, marketing organizations excel in
home safety products company in Canada, has public communications and general outreach.
taken advantage of an unexpected benefit of Ownership of social media varies greatly in today’s
social media­—more honest feedback in a retail organizations who are working out the best
country that culturally is hesitant to give direct approach for their teams’ strengths.
criticism. “Canadians have an international
reputation for politeness.
Customer Service in the Retail Revolution 03

Pelle, the director of customer service for a tried marketing owning everything, then we tried
company selling fashion accessories, is the sole splitting responsibilities by types of inquiries and
owner of all social media activities. Beth works outreach. Having tried basically every possible
for a company selling high end housing items. combination, we feel having specific owners by
Her team shares ownership of social media with social platform is the most effective for us. The
marketing taking point on Facebook, Instagram, key is to over communicate with marketing and
and Pinterest and customer service owning make sure there is no question if an interaction
Twitter and all other social channels. Roseanne’s has been handed off.”
company’s marketing team promotes their
consumer technology products via social media Pelle emphasized the need to have the right
while the customer service team reviews the types of people responding in public forums.
campaigns and supports the inbound inquiries. Not all agents have the skill of communicating
with the entire world, even if they are excellent
Shared ownership of social media, like Beth and with individual customers. “I had a good upbringing
Roseanne’s approach, and was taught respect,
can cause problems, but I learned the hard
“Communicating in a public forum like
and many companies way that trying to make
Twitter is not the same as a phone call or
have tried multiple a joke doesn’t always come
a personal email. You have to choose your
approaches to figure across right. You can’t be
words wisely and think carefully about how
out what works for tone deaf to that kind of
your intention can be misunderstood. Not
them. “Somebody has thing if you’re going to be
every agent has that skill.”
to respond to every the voice of your company.
customer in a timely I think marketing knows
way,” Beth explained. “Even if it’s just a thank you, this instinctively, but our customer service team
people remember that. So somebody needs to needed some trial and error. But we found our
be responsible for ultimate follow up. We started groove and developed an authentic but inoffensive
with customer service owning everything, then way of speaking to customers publicly.”
Customer Service in the Retail Revolution 04

THE ”HOLIDAY DIP“

According to the National Retail Federation, it is Ellen, the manager of a small customer service
not uncommon for retailers to bring in 20-40% of team at a company selling personal hygiene
their annual sales during the weeks leading up products, emphasized that the holiday rush is
to Christmas. Key shopping days such as Cyber about much more than pure volume for her team.
Monday and Black Friday are so important that “Yes, we’re busy in Q4. But what is worse is the
even those outside the industry watch to see customers are different. They are more stressed
what happens and and we have to up the
plan their shopping positive energy to calm
“Q4 is our busiest time of year, and every
around these days. them down. But we can’t
parameter that impacts a successful
A unique challenge take more time with
customer experience is strained.”
for retail customer customers since they are
service organizations all just as busy as we are.
is dealing with this sudden and temporary People are buying less thoughtfully so there are
increase in volume of sales transactions while more purchase regrets and returns that we have
maintaining customer satisfaction levels, all while to deal with.” Adam echoed this sentiment.
dealing with the reality of budget constraints. “During the holidays we find we get a large
number of customers that just aren’t shoppers.
To add to the They don’t know things that
challenge of pure “During the holidays, customers don’t we expect most people know
volume faced during understand how things work as well as our like finding the return label in
the holiday season, typical customer. We have to spend more the box or using the coupon
teams must deal with time on education and misunderstandings before they pay.”
customers that can at a time when we’re busy anyway.”
be more difficult than The Zendesk Benchmark has
usual. They are often more unpleasant because of tracked the impact of the holiday rush on customer
stress, make purchase decisions less thoughtfully, satisfaction. There is a clear trend: satisfaction
and have less experience with retail processes with customer service interactions measurably
such as coupons and returns. and consistently drop during the holiday season.
Customer Service in the Retail Revolution 05

81% 81% 81%

79%
76%
73%

Q3

Q4

2011 2012 2013

The Zendesk analysis further drilled down into Pelle’s approach for the coming holiday season
the data to examine the cause of this “dip” in included an investment in a customer service
satisfaction during the holiday season. They platform that will enable more self-service
found a clear correlation between the drop in capabilities and streamline workflow so each
satisfaction and the number of tickets per agent can handle more tickets. This option was
agent. As tickets per agent increased, a good choice since he had time to implement
satisfaction decreased. and test the systems and train his agents well
before the Q4 rush started.
The retail customer service managers we
spoke with agreed that the Q4 satisfaction dip Lucia took a different approach to dealing with
is a significant issue. They frequently described the holiday customer service rush. She brought
planning for the holiday rush as one of the most on an outsourcing partner for the holiday season.
strategic activities they do each year. Pelle, the This was a good option for her company, which
director of customer service for a company sells non-perishable food items, as agents do
selling fashion accessories, had just finished not require additional product expertise. Their
his annual performance review when we spoke. company has used this approach for several
“If I look back at last year, my biggest strategic years, and each time they optimize the way
mistake was my Q4 forecast. I got it wrong and they work together to create a more seamless
my team wasn’t ready. We’re already making experience. “We have a great outsourcing
changes to do better this year.”
Customer Service in the Retail Revolution 06

partner, and having them deal with basic issues Clearly, there is no single “right way” for retailers
like shipping, let us focus on the things that preparing for the holiday rush. What is never an
are unique to our business. However, when we option is to simply hope that existing resources
first started working together we operated too can manage when activity increases dramatically.
independently. Tickets that were escalated from However, there are two important strategies that
the outsourcer to us created a real speed-bump work well for all customer service managers:
for the customers as they were passed up the
chain. We invested in a service platform that
allowed us to buy temporary licenses for the
01 Be ready early:
Experienced managers who have been
outsourcer so we are all on the same system all through many holiday seasons consistently
the time. That eliminated that problem, plus gave recommend having all additional resources
us greater insight into what was going on with the in place one month before the rush starts.
outsourcer. For example, we were able to identify This gives the opportunity to have everyone
a quality problem with one outsourcing agent trained, all processes in place, and all hiccups
that was just not the kind of person we wanted ironed out before the real rush begins and it
representing our company.” becomes complicated to make changes.

Clay, director of call center operations at a

furniture and appliance chain based in Australia,
02 Use data to influence management:
Customer service teams who have been
chose to hire additional permanent staff for through a bad year usually have an easier
the holiday season. While this was the most time convincing their management to invest
expensive option available, his company’s large in resources for the next year. Using data
ticket items made a focus on personal contact from prior years, such as ticket volumes and
very important and made this the best option. customer satisfaction trends, combined with
resources like the Zendesk Benchmark can
Claire, who works for a Scandinavian electronics be very influential in having management
retailer, deals with the Q4 rush by temporarily approve customer service investments for Q4.
assigning responsibilities of staff outside of
the regular customer service team. “During
the holiday season, nothing is as important as
ensuring sales are made. From our CEO to the
teenager who cleans the kitchen, we were all
working the service queue last December. I know
this wouldn’t work everywhere. We have a small
company with people who are willing to pitch in
and do whatever it takes. We are very careful
to have procedures and training in place so we
don’t end up creating more work cleaning up
mistakes made by employees who usually aren’t
customer facing.”
Customer Service in the Retail Revolution 07

CUSTOMER ADVOCACY
IN RETAIL
One of the most valuable roles in any organization to proactively advocate for the customers.
is representing the voice of the customer in “Management didn’t come to me and say ‘Adam,
business discussions. In retail companies, this you talk to the customers every day, what do you
is a role that is increasingly being taken by the think about this?’ I spent the early part of my
customer service team. career waiting for that moment before I realized
that I had to just go and tell them. The amazing part
When managers walk was that as soon as I started
the floor of their stores, “Half of my job is presenting the company to do that, I was immediately
they naturally interact to the customers in the best possible way. promoted and my profile in the
with customers as part The other half is presenting the customers organization grew.” Robin, call
of their day without to company stakeholders in the best center operations manager for
any special effort. possible way.” a children’s’ clothing company
However, as retail in Europe, emphasized that
companies increasingly there were right ways and
interact with customers online, via kiosks, and wrong ways to communicate with the rest of the
over the phone, management loses that personal organization. “I’ll confess, I started this the wrong
contact. This loss of way. I had all this data from
customer input is a “The information we get from customer the reports in my customer
serious detriment for surveys and feedback from email is service system and I would
a retail organization, carefully distributed so other organizations spend hours looking at the
unless the customer can make changes. It’s paramount to our graphs or reading the details
service team—the business that we get that piece right.” of interactions that had both
organization that positive and negative ratings
consistently hears from customer satisfaction
directly from customers—becomes their advocate. surveys. I love that kind of data and thought
everyone else would too, so I set up read-only
Adam, service manager for a home safety user access for everyone in the company. Luckily I
products company, emphasized that he needs reviewed the access files and realized that nobody
Customer Service in the Retail Revolution 08

logged in. So I changed gears and that’s when I

started my weekly voice of the customer meetings
where I proactively pushed out the data to our
management and my peers in other organizations.”

Successful customer advocates recommend

communicating to management in a thoughtful
and consistent way. To be most influential, it
is important to use a mix of metrics along with
interesting anecdotes in the words of the customer
to give it color. Carl, who runs customer service at
an automobile parts company in Europe, made two
recommendations:

01 Don’t overwhelm managers by sending

them everything. Carefully pick and choose
the metrics and anecdotes that are most
important, while tracking all the details and
follow up with more information if needed.

02 Share both the good and the bad. Customer

service teams can easily get the reputation
for being the bearers of bad news, or for
self-promotion if they share only the good
stuff. Be balanced with communications.
Customer Service in the Retail Revolution 09

CUSTOMER ADVOCACY
FOR DIRECT-TO-CUSTOMER
The role of the service organization in customer general public,” Roseanne explained. “Some of
advocacy plays different roles in different types our customers are tech savvy and can figure it
of retail organizations. Direct-to-customer out on their own or with the FAQ on the website.
businesses have a unique opportunity to deliver But some really just don’t understand even the
customer experience since they own every most basic concepts. There was no way to fix
aspect of the end- that with process, we had
to-end process, from “Our job is to mitigate the bad reasons to fix our product.”
product features why people contact us. Of course we need
and manufacturing, to close tickets, but if we do our jobs right Roseanne’s recommendation
to ordering and we identify and fix so we get fewer calls. to simplify the product went
distribution. Once an We’re the best touch point in the company against the instincts of the
issue is identified by to understand and influence that.” engineering team, who were
a customer service all tech savvy and believed
team, direct-to-customer businesses can respond that more options gave the customers more
quickly since they own the whole process. flexibility. Roseanne was able to pull reports on
issues and sample questions from the customer
Roseanne, a 30-year industry veteran who has run service system in order to make her case for
customer service for a variety of small companies simplifying the product. It worked! Service calls
selling consumer technology, measures herself on dropped from over 20% of customers when
how she impacts the overall business. When she Roseanne started to under 5% for the next version
joined her current company, the product shipping of the product that presented fewer options. “If you
was an early version, and the level of support sell only to engineers you have a limited market.
inquiries was too high to support the price point. It Our sales went up once we had a product that was
was clear something needed to be done as profits accessible to more types of users.”
were being cut by support costs. It was clear to
the customer service team that the problem was Ellen, customer service manager at a personal
the large number of options the product offered. hygiene company, prefers to work in direct-to-
“Our challenge is that we are dealing with the customer because of the increased opportunity
Customer Service in the Retail Revolution 10

to impact business operations. Her team answers

any questions that come in through any channel.
There is no distinction between customer service
and sales. “We field everything. It allows us to do
a lot of value added work to improve the experience
—not just customer service but everything. Of
course we want to have a good response when
bad things happen, but our job is to mitigate the
bad reasons that people contact us.”

Ellen focuses her time on creating a personal

connection with customers in any way she can from
top notch distribution to an amazing website. Her
efforts have driven the reputation of her team in the
organization from being perceived as a cost center,
to a revenue driving organization. “When I joined,
the perception was that customers came because
of marketing’s efforts. Now they see our role as a
key reason why customers buy.”
Customer Service in the Retail Revolution 11

CUSTOMER ADVOCACY
FOR CHANNEL DISTRIBUTION
For retail companies with more complex product business arrangements with partners, customers
sources and channels, customer advocacy can be care about their issue and want you to fix it,” Beth
more challenging. There is little direct control over emphasized. “Although we try, perfection isn’t
business partners and relationships vary greatly. really a possibility. But finding opportunities for
However, the role as customer advocate is even consistency are key, especially in the basics—
more important since it is easier for problems to having the item the customer wants, fulfilling it
hide in the details. When a company doesn’t have quickly, and ensuring the customer has a pleasant
complete control over the end-to-end customer experience with whatever channel they choose.”
experience, it can be harder to impact change.
For example, a store focused on distribution will Beth did emphasize that no matter how complex
need to work with partners to impact product the distribution channels, her store website
features, and a central office may have limited always remains the central brand owner and so
visibility into the activities of their distributors. her team must be prepared to deal with inquiries
from customers no matter where they actually
One of the unique challenges for these made their purchase. “Our formal policy is that
companies is that there isn’t always a clear line customers are sent back to their place of purchase
between various purchase channels. In a survey with problems. Our job is to make that policy work
conducted by Dimensional Research, 77% of and still have happy customers. We empower our
mobile phone owners reported that they had agents to confidently and quickly make the referral
checked online for information about a product so there is no frustration at lengthy runaround
when in a store. experiences, or quickly determine if a situation is
about to get out of hand and then go around the
Beth is a customer service manager working for policy if needed.”
a company selling high end housing items with a
complex distribution system including an online Craig’s experience at a specialized sporting goods
store, name brand stores, as well as department store showed the other side of this experience.
stores. “Customers do not care about your They were traditionally only a physical store, then
Customer Service in the Retail Revolution 12

they opened a very successful online store. Once

the online systems were in place Craig described
his in-store staff as being at a disadvantage by not
having immediate access to a customer’s history
the way the call center team did. He addressed
this by delivering a mobile app so staff on the floor
could access the customer service database just
as easily as an agent on the phone.
Customer Service in the Retail Revolution 13

SCALING WITHOUT
SPENDING
Customer service in a retail environment has a Features in customer service solutions that
particularly challenging combination of factors: are particularly important in a retail environment
include:
• Very high volume of transactions
• Working with the general public • Templates to enable agents to respond
very quickly to standard inquiries
As retail companies grow, these two factors • Ability to spot-check agent performance,
make the ability to scale in a cost effective particularly during the holiday rush when
manner imperative. While every executive will new agents and outsourcers are brought on
agree that customer service is a priority, they still • License model that enables adding and
require their customer service teams to operate subtracting of new agents easily
within a budget. The customer service systems • Self-service capabilities like FAQs
used can be a key factor in delivering great • Ability to offer a consistent experience
support without breaking the bank. through any channel—phone, email, web,
text, or social media
The key requirements in a customer service
solution for a retail environment map back to the The most important capability when discussing
unique factors in retail. They must easily scale tools is reporting. Customer service managers
to support a high working at scale require reliable
number of individual “The information we put together as a data to know where to focus
transactions without team has completely changed customer investments, and to impact
growing headcount. loyalty.” company decision making. Key
Processes must be metrics tracked by participants
simple so even customers and agents who are not included top contact reason, contacts per week,
technology savvy can use them. call wait time, time to first response, time to close,
and satisfaction.
Customer Service in the Retail Revolution 14

Pelle took time to emphasize that while satisfaction

numbers are important, those numbers alone
can be misleading if underlying trends aren’t
understood. Tools must enable drill-down to figure
out the root cause of problems. “A low satisfaction
score can be a customer service agent, or it could
be the product they purchased. It’s important to
know what underlies the metrics or you can’t fix it.”
Customer Service in the Retail Revolution 017

The retail industry has gone through dramatic

changes in recent years, each increasing the
need for excellent customer experience. Retail
purchases are often emotional. Delivering
excellent customer service that leads to happy
customers and positive interactions will result
in more sales and good word of mouth. Having
a plan to address specific issues with retail
customer service, including social media,
holiday rush, and customer advocacy, as well
as the proper tools for cost-effective scalability,
will go a long way to meet these goals.
Customer Service in the Retail Revolution 16

ABOUT
DIMENSIONAL RESEARCH
Dimensional Research® provides practical
marketing research to help technology companies
make their customers more successful. Our
researchers are experts in the people, processes,
and technology of corporate IT and understand
how corporate IT organizations operate. We
partner with our clients to deliver actionable
information that reduces risks, increases customer
satisfaction, and grows the business. For more
information, visit www.dimensionalresearch.com.

ABOUT
ZENDESK
This paper was sponsored by Zendesk. Zendesk
provides a customer service platform designed
to bring organizations and their customers closer
together. With more than 45,000 customer accounts,
Zendesk is used by organizations in 140 countries
to provide support in more than 40 languages.
Founded in 2007 and headquartered in San
Francisco, Zendesk has operations in the United
States, Europe, Asia, Australia and South America.