BUSINESS FACTORS
Customer Service as a Differentiator 
Aaron Chen
It used to be that good or bad service would be communicated by “word of mouth” – generally restricted to a few contacts. In today’s marketplace, thanks to ever evolving technology and in particular social media, the word gets around a lot faster and to much larger audience. While a satisfied customer’s comments can make for a great day, an unhappy customer’s fifteen minutes of fame via e-media can be a company’s considerably longer moment of doom.
How important is customer service now? What should companies focus on in order to avoid poor service and capitalize on good service? We sat down with Aaron Randolph Chen, Managing Director and Country Manager for BDP International in Indonesia, and discussed why companies should spend more time on customer service issues.
Gateway: Providing a high level of customer service is good for business and is common sense. Right?
Chen: It is important to remember that excellent service and exceeding customer expectations cannot be accomplished by turning on a switch. It takes time and requires the investment of effort and patience. It also takes the concerted and coordinated efforts of several teams in order to achieve favorable results.
Customer service is also one of the most analyzed—some may say overanalyzed—business functions. However, there is nothing that can positively or negatively affect a company’s reputation faster than service.
Companies should take a closer look at the “soft skills” of customer service throughout their organizations and leverage those into ways to improve and grow their business. And I mean throughout an organization. Too often, companies see customer service as the responsibility of one or two areas within their organizations. Service is everyone’s responsibility—from the top down and bottom up. You can’t compartmentalize service—it is at the very core of a company’s interface, externally and internally.
Gateway: How can good customer service retain customers and influence attracting new customers?
Chen: Exceeding expectations is generally what it takes for a customer to say “Wow!” or “That’s a pleasant surprise,” or “I didn’t expect that” – regardless of whether they think it or actually say it.
Exceeding expectations assumes we know our customer’s precise expectations. Of course, there are certain expectations which can even be measured with KPIs, while occasionally there are expectations that tend to be more subjective and are impossible to measure. In order for us to really know our customer’s expectations, we must have a decent level of customer intimacy (something which BDP President Richard Bolte strongly advocates), so that the customer feels comfortable to share information with us, including any concerns they may have.
At BDP, if we did not continually strive to exceed expectations, we would be average. While we might hold on to business, our customers won’t be recommending us to new customers. Exceeding expectations also means looking for opportunities to do so. Good customer service should not only be second nature, it should also be proactive.
Customers genuinely pleased with the service they are receiving from a service provider are more than likely to recommend the service to their customers or suppliers/vendors.
Gateway: What are the dangers of not providing good customer service?
Chen: As I mentioned, it can mean lost business. It can reduce a company from being a branded product to a generic product. In the case of the latter, you only win business when you are the cheapest and your customer relationship is as strong as your next price quote. At BDP we know that good customer service builds a company into a premium brand, which customers talk to each other about, and will even introduce to new customers.
“Just make sure my cargo gets to me in one piece and on time, with no surprises! I don’t like surprises!” is a common request by shippers of their freight forwarder. However, surprises are very much a part of the business landscape – whether it is a flight delay or a cargo that missed its connecting vessel. How we deal with surprises goes a long way to either falling short of expectations or exceeding them.
Gateway: How cutting costs should NOT mean cutting customer service.
Chen: Cutting costs in most businesses actually takes the form of keeping overhead expenses down. This is where it becomes a great challenge for managers to walk what is, effectively, a tightrope without a net below.
More often than not, headcount is seen as overhead. But by trying to do more with less, managers must be careful not to reduce headcount at the expense of the quality of service provided to customers. If customer service or operations staff are pushed to continuously handle more customers, this is bound to reach a point where they are overloaded and become unable to cope during peak periods. Also, it can impact the individual’s ability to deliver a positive experience when in contact with a customer.
Gateway: What do you see as the role of managers in providing good customer service?
Chen: Managers play a very significant role—their attitude, in most instances, will influence the attitude of their staff.
The basic concept of delighting customers need to be delivered from managers to their team members so that their team members can genuinely “feel” it. How do you deliver a “feeling” or “experience,” if you are not quite sure what it is? As I mentioned, service is everyone’s responsibility. It goes back to what we call the BDP Experience concept. Before we can deliver it to customers, we need to be able to deliver it to ourselves within the company or team.
Gateway: Why is customer service even more important in the “new normal” economy?
Chen: For me, interacting with customers—the experience our customers have when they communicate with our people (whether written or verbal or in person)—is what creates the strongest and most lasting impression.
For BDP, being a non-asset based company, the main differentiators are the technology and solutions we offer our customers from a product perspective, as well as the quality of our customer service. And solutions are a key part of service. This gets back to never losing sight of doing whatever you can do to make the customer’s experience the best it can be.
Mr. Chen is located in Jakarta and can be reached at +62 21 6531 1330 ext. 1900 and at aaron.chen@bdpindonesia.com.
Shippers don’t want surprises: case in point
In 2011, BDP handled an ocean shipment from Indonesia to Hong Kong. Unknown to BDP at the time, the ocean carrier was in financial trouble. Without any warning or notification, the vessel was rerouted to South Korea where all the cargo (destined for other ports) was discharged from the vessel, and the vessel repossessed by its creditors.
BDP’s customer’s cargo, which should have arrived in Hong Kong, was now sitting on a wharf in South Korea with no plan by the carrier to correct the situation. Since the damage was already done, BDP Indonesia staff jumped into action and asked BDP Korea to help with arranging un-stuffing the container (which had to remain in South Korea) and find a carrier to take the cargo to Hong Kong. To protect everyone’s interests, BDP Indonesia also employed an independent surveyor to supervise the whole process.
“We did this while explaining the situation to a very upset customer, knowing full well that we might have to assume all the extra costs. In such situations, it is about minimizing losses rather than trying to prevent them, because they have already occurred,” said Aaron Chen, Managing Director and Country Manager for BDP International in Indonesia.
“We visited the customer and explained that BDP’s resources were able to resolve a very difficult issue,” Chen said. “Understanding the challenge, the customer actually paid for all the costs. In addition, they turned around and recommended BDP to their supplier in Singapore! But had we not taken the time to go and see the customer and explain everything to them, you can bet it would have been the last time they ever dealt with anyone at BDP.”