Customer Service and Why It’s Important with Pawel Wencel

A new season of The Extra Mile Podcast by Metafora just started, and it is full of great conversations, awesome guests, and more surprises! We kick off this season with an exploration into the importance of quality customer service. Our hosts Adam”P-Mutt” Perlmutter and Teresa Ronquillo chat with an expert on the topic… Pawel Wencel, Customer Service Manager at Metafora. From what customer service is to what it isn’t, why it’s important, and how to measure its success, we dive into all things customer service with Pawel. “People Never Forget How You Make Them Feel”- Pawel Wencel Pawel’s Background: Born and raised in the beautiful country of Poland in central Europe, then he moved to the United States when he turned 10. During his professional career he worked in a number of fields. He did recruiting for a staffing agency and then transitioned into healthcare manufacturing through a variety of roles and positions. He found Metafora through Shanna Greathouse with whom he used to work with at the healthecare manufacturing firm! What IS Customer Service and what ISN’T? Customer Service is not about solving unique problems. Customer Service is about fostering relationships through an ongoing collaborative experience that continuously delivers value to your customers or clients. There are many ways to do this, including personalized onboarding, identifying and exceeding goals, recommendation of features, proactively asking for and implementing feedback, as well as celebrating each other's success and milestones. From an organizational perspective it creates loyalty, strengthens reputation, and supports growth. What it isn’t: It is not thinking by yourself in a silo It's not providing limited myopic solutions to problems. Why is customer service important? “It's if you're operating a business and if you're looking to maintain your customer base, providing customer support/ Customer service is an incredible way for you to retain customers”- Pawel Wencel Pawel explains that customer satisfaction directly impacts customer retention, which directly affects revenue: Strong Brand Loyalty Higher Customer Lifetime Value (CLV) Decreased Brand Abandonment Retention ROI versus Cost of Acquisition #FACTS: Did you know companies with a customer service mindset drive revenue 4 to 8% higher than the rest of their industry? Roughly 80%, 81% of companies view customer experience as a competitive differentiator. Your favorite brands are the ones that treat you well and that you have a good experience. It's more cost effective for a company to retain existing customers than to acquire new customers. What has led to Metafora’s Customer Service success? Team Leadership and Teammate Autonomy Teamwork Buy-In and Collaboration Setting Realistic and Clear Goals Defining and Tracking Success and Performance Going Above and Beyond User Expectations Fostering Client and User Relationships Effective User Onboarding and Ongoing Training Establishing a Hierarchy of Support Capturing and Implementing Feedback Having the Right Tool For the Right Job “Customer service it's not just a function, but necessarily it's just this little amoeba-like thing that touches everything in a good way.”- Pawel Wencel How do you coach the team on how to handle customer service scenarios that are difficult in nature, e.g. angry customers? Our team touches base regularly about our experiences/ We review what worked and what didn’t. We’re encouraged to have these courageous and challenging conversations that we can learn from.. Pawel coaches the team on empathizing and taking ownership and responsibility for the solution. Pawel also coaches the team about taking accountability for driving each solution. “Anything that's never happened, happens all the time.” - Pawel Wencel