【优质服务的魔力】

Schumpeter

熊彼特

The magic of good service

优质服务的魔力

Companies hope that “chief customer officers” will provide better service. Yeah, right

公司希望“首席客户官”能提供更好地服务。没错，双手赞成！

Sep 22nd 2012 | from the print edition of The Economist

译者：至尊仙人

THE customer is king. So some firms have started appointing chief customer officers (CCOs) to serve the king more attentively. These new additions to the (already crowded) C-suite are supposed to look at the business from the customer’s point of view. They try to focus on the entire “customer experience”, rather than on individual transactions.

顾客就是上帝。一些公司开始雇佣“首席客户官”（CCOs）来为“上帝”提供更周到的服务。作为跻身首席军团（已然济济一堂）的新生力量，他们将从顾客的利益出发，为公司的发展出谋划策。相较于单笔交易，他们更关注的是整体的“顾客体验”。

CCOs have many assistants. Salesforce.com has a “vice-president of customers-for-life” to help its CCO. NetApp, a data-storage firm, has a “vice-president of customer advocacy”. Cisco, a technology giant, has a “director of customer listening”. Vanguard, an investment firm, has a “voice of client group”.

“首席客户官”们配有多名助理。Salesforce.com的首席客户官拥有一名“负责‘生为客户’的副总裁”。网泰（NetApp）信息存储公司，拥有“负责‘拥护客户’的副总裁”。科技巨头思科（Cisco）公司有“负责‘聆听客户’的经理”。而投资公司Vanguard的则是“客户群之声”。

A new book helps explain why this is happening. In “Outside In”, Harley Manning and Kerry Bodine of Forrester Research, a consultancy, observe that customers are growing more powerful. The internet makes it easier to shop around and share complaints with a wide audience. Yet poor service persists. Mr Manning and Ms Bodine have been asking customers about their experiences with American companies for years. In 2012 a third of the 160 firms they asked about were rated “poor” or “very poor”. Health insurers and cable companies fared worst.

福雷斯特研究公司（Forrester Research，一家咨询公司）的哈里·曼宁和凯莉·博汀合著的新书——《置身事外&深入其中》有助于我们了解该现象产生的背后原因。在他们眼中，顾客变得空前强大。网络不仅使购物更加便利，也扩大了不良购物体验的传播范围。尽管如此，劣质服务仍然比比皆是。许多年来，曼宁和博汀都一直致力于有关顾客在美国公司购物体验的研究。在2012年调查的160家美国公司中，有1/3都被贴上了“糟糕”或是“十分糟糕”的标签，首当其冲的就是健康保险和有线电视公司。

Powerful, angry customers could spur big changes. Already, they have dumped customer-unfriendly brands, such as AOL, an internet portal, as soon as alternatives came along. They have embraced companies that serve them well, such as Zappos (an online shoe shop that lets you order, try on and return as many shoes as you like) and Southwest Airlines, a cheap but friendly carrier. Bank of America should be terrified that it is near the bottom of the customer-experience index while another bank, USAA, is right at the top.

神通广大又火冒三丈的顾客可能会搅起轩然大波。对于那些服务态度恶劣的品牌，一旦有替代品出现，他们便会将其果断抛弃。门户网站美国在线（AOL）的遭遇就在现身说法。相反，顾客对那些态度友好的公司会敞开双臂，欣然接受，譬如美捷步（Zappos，一家网络鞋店，允许顾客随意选购、试穿和退还鞋子，没有数量限制）以及实惠且服务周到的西南航空公司。在顾客体验指数榜里金融服务机构美国联合服务汽车协会（USAA）稳居榜首，相反，几近触底的美国银行怕是要不寒而栗了。

Having a CCO may help firms that find that technology is disrupting the way they relate to their customers. The Washington Post (like most newspapers) has discovered that it must provide a constant stream of content rather than a single daily edition. Rosetta Stone, a provider of language-learning software, has found that it needs to offer interactive coaching as well. Both companies have recruited CCOs.

首席客户官能帮助公司认识到它们与顾客间的联系正被科学技术搅得一团糟。华盛顿邮报（以及其他许多报纸）发现提供持续的信息流远比出版单一的日刊来得重要。语言学习软件提供商，罗塞塔石碑（或如师通，Rosetta Stone）也意识到提供互动式训练的重要性，这两家公司的人员名单上都有首席客户官。

Will this make any difference? Companies have paid lip service to customer service for years, yet still treat customers like serfs. Mr Manning and Ms Bodine retort that companies are trying to learn from the few, such as Disney and Apple, that have cracked the customer-service code. These firms hire for attitude rather than skills alone. They nurture a culture of service. For example, Zappos keeps a “Wow Library” of exemplary recorded calls that its employees can listen to. Circles, a concierge service, gives employees prizes, including time off, for getting high scores on customer-satisfaction surveys.

这么做会带来改变吗？长久以来，公司对顾客的服务都只是口惠而实不至，顾客受到的还是农奴般的对待。对此，曼宁和博汀申辩道，很多公司还是竭力与先前已成功为顾客创造优质服务的公司（诸如迪斯尼和苹果）看齐的。这些公司看重的不仅仅是员工的技能，更是他们的态度。公司培养的是一种服务文化。举个例子，美步捷（Zappos）公司的“卓越音库”里保存有员工们可以借鉴的优秀电话录音范例，而提供礼宾服务的公司Circle则为那些在顾客满意度调查中获得高分的员工准备了许多奖励，休假也包括在内。

The authors also point out that companies have more ways than ever before to find out what their customers think of them. Accor, a hotel company, pores over comments on websites and sorts them into 30 different categories. Its managers receive daily customer insights that help them identify and solve problems.

除此之外，新书的作者还指出现在用于了解公司在顾客心目中形象的办法简直是五花八门。雅高（Accor），一家酒店集团，认真研读顾客在公司网站的留言并将其划分为30个不同的类别。每天都有一些顾客提供的深刻见解能协助公司经理们发现并解决问题。

Companies also have a growing arsenal of techniques to improve customer service. They identify the “journeys” that customers take—such as choosing a product, paying for it or asking for help—and then follow them on their travels to see if they encounter any problems. They invent archetypes of different sorts of customers to fine-tune their services. For example, Geek Squad, an American firm that fixes IT problems, offers one kind of service to “Jill” (who regards her computer as a utility) and another to “Daryl” (a fellow geek who likes to chat about technology). The firm encourages customers to offer advice.

公司用于改善服务的技术武器也如雨后春笋。顾客挑选商品，付账或是寻求帮助等过程被它们戏称为“消费之旅”，只要实时关注他们的“度假”，公司就能知道顾客是否遇上了麻烦事。通过模拟不同顾客的虚拟典型，也有助于实现服务的微调。例如，作为一家解决IT故障的美国公司，极客团队（Geek Squad）便虚构了吉尔（Jill）这个形象，用来代表所有将电脑视为统一整体的顾客，还有达利尔（Daryl），一个乐于畅谈科技的土包子。这家公司也鼓励顾客多提意见。

Office Depot, a business-supplies chain, has built a “planogram lab”—a prototypical store near its headquarters in south Florida. It brings in customers to help design its “shopping experience” and yet more customers to test it. It also uses the old trick of forcing senior managers to play the role of customers. Adobe, a software firm, holds “customer immersion days” where it exposes managers to what customers regard as the most infuriating problems they have to deal with.

欧迪办公（Office Depot），商务供应连锁公司，在离弗罗里达州南部的总部不远之处建造了一座用于“商品陈列研究”的样品店。源源不断的顾客将会来此参与“购物体验”的设计。就连强迫高级经理假扮顾客这样的老把戏也是屡试不爽。软件公司奥多比（Adobe）会在其举办的“心向客户日”里就迁怒于顾客们的若干问题，要求相关经理一一给予解决措施。

The rise of the machines

机器语音的崛起

All this sounds splendid, but there are powerful forces tugging in the other direction. Customers like low prices as well as good service, and many of the things companies can do to cut costs make the “customer experience” stink. Supermarkets make you check out your own groceries. When your washing machine or internet connection breaks down, the only help you can get is from a chap in Hyderabad who speaks little or no English. Bosses like to think that big data will help them understand their customers better. But often they use new technology to build barriers between themselves and the paying public.

上述种种都叫人拍手称快，不过且慢，仍有一些背道而驰的因素在大行其道。顾客们都希望低廉的价格与优质的服务能够兼得，孰不知公司许多降低成本的举措都牺牲了“顾客体验”的利益。超市不再提供结账服务，当你的洗衣机或是网络连接出现故障时，唯一能提供帮助的只是一个来自海德拉巴会说一点甚至完全不会英语的家伙。管理者自认为研析足够多的数据就可以拉近与顾客的距离。然而，事与愿违，新的技术反倒在两者间凭添了多条鸿沟。

It is, for example, almost impossible to call a company and talk to a human being. First you spend half an hour finding the carefully concealed telephone number. When you dial it, an android answers. Frustrated grumblers have set up websites with tips on how to get past the robo-gatekeepers. (Schumpeter’s favourite trick is to pretend to be a deranged Chinese-speaker.) You’d think companies would take the hint. Instead, they have made it even harder to reach a human and set the machines to work on more complicated tasks, such as selling tickets. Wow.

举个例子，要想拨通公司号码并与活生生的人通话简直比登天还难。首先，你得花本个小时刨出潜伏得很深的电话号码。历经周折终于打进电话，听到得却是自助语音提示。于是乎，气急败坏的你，满嘴嘟囔着在网站贴出如何攻破语音机器人防线的建议帖。（本栏最钟情的恶搞方式就是装作满嘴胡言乱语的中国人。）你或许以为公司会心领神会，作出改变。的确，是有改变，只不过下次你会发现与人通话会比登火星还难，并且原先的一些人工服务，例如售票，也由能应付更多复杂问题的机器人代替了。实在是太猛了！

These infernal devices do at least perform one useful function: they let customers measure the value of this new management fad. Phone a firm that has appointed a chief customer officer and see if you can reach a human being. If not, that CCO might as well be tossed from an executive-floor window, no doubt clutching his collection of “journey maps” and “customer archetypes”.

这些恼人的设备也并非一无是处：顾客可以借此权衡一下一时兴起的管理措施的实用价值。或许你可以打给雇用首席客户官的公司，看看能否与真人通话。如果不能，这位首席客户官一定会被一脚从首席宝座上踹开，连同他紧握着的“消费之旅地图”和“顾客虚拟典型”，消失在人们的视线之中。

from the print edition | Business