Customer Choice in Customer Service

I have had this topic on my mind a lot lately both as a business person and as a consumer. I have been thinking about what it means to give your customers choice and where do you draw the line in providing choice to customers in the world of Customer Service.

The central question I consistently ask both Customer Service execs and myself is, "How are you deciding whether or not you add specific consumer choices to your customer service group?" As an example, how do you know when it is right to add a new technology to offer choice in web self service? Or how do you know when it is right to add another channel to support your customers?

The quick answer that I get from many CS Executives is, we add choice based on consumer or customer need. Really? How do you know this? Are you actually asking them? Or are you just responding to what the latest buzz or fad is in service? Or are you just responding to a competitive pressure?

My sense is, from being a consumer and from talking to these people, most customer service organizations are entirely reactive to how they add options to customers choice. They wait until the very last minute and then finally cave in because they feel the need to keep up or they jump onto the newest fad without taking the time to really understand why they should or should not give that choice.

Couple of quick examples:

1. Big Cable Company- I was talking to an executive about one year ago at a cable company. He told me that he needed to get some type of customer support going up on Twitter. I asked him why he thought that was imperative, he said that Comcast was doing it and getting all kinds of press from it and it was forcing him to react as the executive team at his company started asking him why they didn't have a Twitter support group.

Now, I am not debating here in this space whether or not it is right to have a Twitter support group. That is for another post. But what I am saying is that the decision to give consumers choice about their support needs should come from a solid, reasoned and a logical thought process. Not because you got pressured to do it by your exec team and their focus on the shining new object.

2. Large e-Commerce Company- I was recently out to see a large e-tailer and we were talking about self service. She told me that they don't see voice self service as really something that their customers would really like. I asked her how she knew that. She told me that she just knew and that based on their own bias towards self service and it's generally poor design across all industries, they would likely never offer it to their customers.

Now this is the other end of the spectrum. In this case, they are not being pressured by anyone to offer choice, but they are assuming that their customers don't want something based on nothing but pure hunch. They are denying their customers a potential choice that may be really useful to them without even asking the question of them. Again, whether or not you like voice self service or not, that is not the argument here. The question really is how do you know whether or not your customers will like it or want it if you don't ever ask them and you just assume they won't.

I am curious, have others of you run into situations like this? Have you been forced to make decisions about choice or just assumed answers about consumer choice without asking the question?