Customer Success

Understanding Customer Motivation is Integral to Customer Service

May 25, 2011

It’s easy to be skeptical when a company claims to understand their customers.

The question that often begs to be asked is, “how well do they understand?” In many instances, there are simply gaps in their knowledge. But this can easily be avoided if they were more inquisitive. Not only that, but they need to make sure they’re asking the questions that will uncover customer motivation.

Customer support is about asking why. Why did the customer decide to make an inquiry? Why is the customer having this problem? Why does this problem exist?

Asking these sort of questions — and answering them — is going to be the foundation of an effective customer service department. And if your team isn’t actively asking and answering these questions, you may need to reevaluate your best practices process for customer inquiry resolution. For more information on customer motivation, watch the video from OpenView Labs featuring Bill Price.