Keeping Customers: Part 1 - Quality of Service

Every customer you retain is a customer you don' t have to replace. More important, happy customers send you new customers. Service is key.

by Jason Zigmont HowToSell.net [September 10, 1999]

Corny as it may sound, as an ISP, your middle name is 'service.' Good service is critical to retaining customers—which, in turn, is critical to attracting new ones. It's a fact: Most ISPs report that the largest number of new users comes from referrals—and only happy customers will refer new ones to you.

The term 'Quality of Service' (QoS), has undergone an evolution—from a descriptive phrase, to a quantifiable attribute of what you, as an ISP, sell to your customers. QoS is usually expressed in a percentage of uptime, such as 99.9 percent, or as 'how many 9s'. Many business customers are now looking for Service Level Agreements (SLAs) that commit you to a specified QoS level—and often mandate a monetary refund for your failing to meet that committment. Do you know what your QoS level is?

Even if your customers don't demand one, you should make a SLA with yourself. That is, commit yourself to providing a certain level of service. It should cover uptime, busy signals, throughput, and many other technical issues.

Keep yourself honest
The hardest part of providing technically superior service is in measuring it— a prerequisite to figuring out what needs to be changed.

• Do you know how many busy signals you have?
• What is your user-to-modem ratio?
• Do you know how many dropped calls you have during busy times?
• Do you know what your uptime is?
• Do you know what your Internet access capacity usage is?

Once you develop answers to these questions, then you can use them to improve your service. In turn, the improvements become central to your marketing. If you can prove your QoS commitment to yourself, it shouldn't be hard to convince customers to use your service.

To outsource or not . . .
Customer service—both technical and on the billing side—is an area that is often overlooked. Many ISPs these days are turning to outsourced technical support—mostly for the wrong reason: cost. IMHO, customer service is an area where cost should never be a determining factor. A dollar saved on customer service can cost you hundreds in the end. Remember: The average disgruntled customer tells 10 people about it, while the satisfied one tells only four.

If you are considering outsourcing, keep in mind that in doing so you will relinquish something approaching 50 percent control over the quality of your customers' experience. Customers will now have two points of contact, in separate locations and with different organizations. You'll need to make sure that your outsourcing provider represents your company in a way that reflects favorably on you. Check up. Call your outsourcing provider posing as a user. Do it a number of times, at different times of day; see how they handle you. Think about it from a customer's standpoint. Do you want the person answering the telephone to represent your company?

Speed matters
If you keep customer service in house (as I'd urge you to do), keep an eye on average call times and—more importantly—hold times. Users seem to deal pretty well with hold times in the 5 minute range, but as hold times stretch to 10 minutes, they become increasingly upset. Average technical support calls are around 7 minutes. I'd recommend making pretty darned sure you don't exceed this.

One customer-service aid well worth implementring is a call tracking system. First of all, compiling a permanent history of all interactions you've had with each customer helps your staff personalize service. Second, keeping comprehensive records of problems that come up helps you proactively improve your operations, resulting in happier customers overall. And—to say it one last time—happy customers refer new customers to you . . . and you profit.

—End

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