Jose Herrera is the CEO and co-founder of Horatio, a Customer Experience company for today’s fastest-growing brands. Jose sets the strategic vision of Horatio and leads all growth, sales, marketing efforts for the company. Prior to founding Horatio, Jose was a Vice President at Morgan Stanley, overseeing the Latin American Investment Management institutional sales group. Originally hailing from the Dominican Republic, Jose, and his two co-founders Alex Ross and Jared Karson, were inspired to create a company that provides tech-enabled customer support for North America’s biggest brands while also creating opportunities locally on Jose’s native Island. In 2021, Jose was named by Forbes Magazine on the Next 1000 list of today’s entrepreneurs redefining the American Dream. 

On today’s show we discuss best practices for companies to establish an excellent customer service strategy.

Key Takeaways

• Customer service is a top competitive point for companies because if a customer doesn’t feel valued, they will choose a competitor.
• How to determine appropriate financial investment in your company’s customer service strategy – What percentage of your profit is based on repeat customers and/or referrals? Investment includes appropriate staffing and technology tools.
• Satisfied customers begin with valued and empowered customer service associates. How to get “buy-in” from your associates:
  • Make sure you are very open in communication with your team about things happening in all areas of the company. Help them to use the brand and be familiar with it.
  • Provide coaching opportunities, feedback sessions, roundtable discussions.
  • Communicate clear expectations about resolution of problems and the escalation process so that they are empowered to act effectively in the midst of the conversation with the customer.
  • Consider “openness” and “collaboration” when designing working space as well.
  • Ways to balance “taking care of the customer” and “taking care of the company.”
• Overcommunicate policies – set customer expectations up front.
• Invest in and set up processes to be able to identify patterns and problems that can be fixed on the back end.
• Utilize better automations that will solve frequent customer issues in a smooth and pleasant way.
• Top 4 tips for customer service success:
  • Culture – define it clearly and ensure it is shaping every customer interaction
  • Customer – define who they are and what type of interaction they want
  • Associates – value their feedback and provide them the tools they need to be successful
  • Focus – constant improvement

Connect with Jose Herrera
Company website – https://hirehoratio.com
Instagram – https://www.instagram.com/hirehoratio/
LinkedIn – https://www.linkedin.com/company/hire-horatio/people/