These are The Three Things……That We Are Doing to Focus on World Class Customer Service in 2023 and Beyond. Plus, Happy Holidays From All of Us at GSU!!
You’ve heard the saying before, “you don’t know what you don’t know.” That’s because until we do something ourselves, and experience it ourselves, we simply cannot know.
Here’s the thing about growing our companies – we simply don’t know what we’re going to encounter, and if we’re growing quickly, we don’t know what things are going to break along the way. The only way to know is, to do.
When we first started GSU in 2018, there were four employees, including the two Co-Founders. At that stage, it was easy for me to affect everything we did. It has always been a passion of mine to blow people away with this business. We named our customer service department the Happiness Department, after all. And we meant it. We sought to create a “Wow” experience. Early on, we heard it all the time – GSU is simply the best.
Truth be told, we still do. But it’s inevitable that as we grow from one client to over 1,000, there will be some people along the way who we miss an opportunity to wow. We can tell ourselves we’ll be perfect. And that’s certainly a nice sound bite (and cute little white lie) to tell ourselves. But back in reality, business happens.
Nevertheless, it’s also true that when you’re growing quickly (as we have to over 150 full-time in-house team members), there will be at least some part of the company that no longer looks like it once did.
For us, it’s simply unacceptable to provide any other experience than to wowour clients. Customer experience is entirely within our control, and we own that. I’d rather have a quaint little company with the best reputation in the business than a large conglomerate with the reputation of, say, Comcast. That wouldn’t allow me to sleep well at night. But I also believe that the two aren’t mutually exclusive. Healthy growth while maintaining top 1% standards is achievable, and that’s what we set out to do, every day.
So, in addition to an increase in training for incoming Staffers, which you’ll be hearing about early next year, I wanted to share with you Three Things we’re putting in place to focus on the “WOW” factor for you, our clients, in terms of customer experience and service in 2023.
-
VP of Customer Success:
There’s a growing field in business called Customer Experience, or CX for short (can also be called Client Success). The idea here is that someone within the organization needs to be the advocate for the customer, paying meticulous attention to all aspects of the client’s journey. After a meticulous nationwide search, we’re proud to announce that on November 29, 2022, we hired a Vice President of Customer Success, Michael Barnett. Michael is tasked with training our team to give the best customer service possible and to increase the level of customer satisfaction back to the best in business. We’re extremely happy to have Michael and can’t wait to see how he helps transform our CX department.
-
Massive Software Investment:
Speaking of growth, we realized about a year ago that we were outgrowing our current software. We’re spending over a half a million dollars between this year and next finding, implementing, customizing and then utilizing best in class software. This will have a huge impact on your experience with GSU, from the communication during the matching process to the interactions with your Happiness Coordinator. Once we finally have the software selected, which we plan on finishing demos this quarter, (because nothing is easy!) it will take another six to nine months to implement the software. There will be growing pains, to be sure, but we know this is what’s going to take us to the next level. This is also where not knowing what we didn’t know comes into play, by the way. Who knew in order to reach our ten year goal we’d need to tear down what we built and do it all over bigger and better? It’s easy to see in hindsight, and if there’s ever a next time, it’ll be much easier then too. But for now, we’re growing right alongside our business, as most of you are as well.
-
Direct Feedback Sessions with Me:
The thing I’m perhaps most excited about, at least in the short term, is that I’ve delegated more off of my plate and have freed up some time to hit the streets, so to speak. Starting in January 2023, I will be asking (and I’ll practically beg, if I have to), anyone who has had an experience with GSU that they think I can learn from, to please join me for a feedback session. I would call these “Exit Interviews,” but instead of only talking with former clients, I want to speak with current clients.
If there’s something we’re doing, or have done, that hasn’t blown you away, isn’t first in class, or was flat-out bad/wrong, PLEASE talk to me about it. I’m going to take the feedback, learn like crazy, and take action. That’s all I know how to do.
Unlike a coaching company with a lot of facetime, I don’t get to speak with our clients all that often, unless they’re personal friends. This is your opportunity to speak with me, and my opportunity to learn from you. I’ve already had some Feedback Sessions, and they have been amazing. I can’t wait to learn from you as well.
Cheers to a New Year.