Customer service helps businesses create valuable relationships with customers and suppliers alike. The communications made between a business and their customers are the underpinning of their success.
However, what does customer service look like in a 2023 and how have things changed throughout history?
Traditional industries (before the industrial revolution) would often sell direct to their customer. Generations of families would rely on in built customer relationships to support their ongoing supply chains.
Whether it be consumables, construction materials or clothing, people simply spoke to other people, communicated their needs directly and worked in harmonious supplier/customer relationship. Home deliveries of milk and other commodities were also commonplace because village life meant entire communities relied upon and supported each other.
During the industrial revolution when thousands of UK workers flocked to the growing cities, the independent bakers, butchers and farmers who were used to selling directly to the residents of rural village, suddenly had competition. Inner cities began to attract shop owners and businesses which were now vying for a different consumer audience – the industrialised age had arrived.
As part of the industrialisation of the UK and the growth of cities, houses were built in vast rows attracting a new workforce hungry for change and with it a new breed of supplier – the corner shop owner.
Corner shops were originally built to supply the very basics to the ever-growing city populations and the bakers, butchers and dairy farmers alike suddenly had a new way to sell their wares. With this new way of shopping came a new form of customer service. Whereas shop owners in rural villages had a small and niche customer base, all of a sudden, the ‘Corner Shop Owner’ had hundreds of customers all seeking the same level of service.
The ‘customer service’ at the corner shop became an important social hub for the ever growing neighbourhoods and corner shop owners would know names, dates of births and generations of families as they all sought out their services.
As a child when I and many of my peers would make weekly trips to the local shop, the Post Office or the greengrocer; there was a distinct relationship between us and the shop keeper or person serving us. Wherever I lived as a youngster, the people in the consumer establishments we visited regularly knew us by name, knew our family and knew how to ask questions about parts of our lives they were party to. This all came about through snippets of conversations held between us as shoppers/consumers and the business owners we communicated with.
Furthermore, services such as house or car insurance would see the ‘Insurance Man’ visit the policy holder in their home. He would arrive with a log book and payments for home or car insurance were made directly to him. I remember clearly the Liverpool Victoria man show up for the payment, sit with my parents, have a cup of tea. It was the highest level of personal customer service and all part of the service offered by the insurance company.
However, communities are no longer small and intimate societies, as we see sprawling housing estates making towns and cities become gigantic.
Along with this, the ability for communities to hold on to the traditions of the past struggle under the weight of progress and with it the communications between consumers and businesses have changed.
Throughout the 1960’s-1990’s independent traders, greengrocers and service providers were swallowed up by vast supermarkets and the personal service was lost to the introduction of the call centre.
The restrictions the Covid19 pandemic put upon societies saw local and artisan suppliers suddenly make a resurgence as they became relied upon as people were restricted from travelling to their regular shopping haunts. Local deliveries became the norm and in many areas in particular the rural areas of the UK, suddenly shoppers and service users became aware of a whole new way of sourcing the basics and identifying a network of local and artisan suppliers right on their doorsteps.
Despite the world having slipped back into pre-Covid ways very quickly to repair the economic damage the pandemic has done, there are some positives.
With more people seeking more sustainable ways to shop and source services there is an upsurge in independent and artisan businesses flourishing and integrating our towns, villages and even our city centres. This is not only enabling a better level of communication between the consumer and the business owner, but it also goes some way to remind us of the value of human-to-human communication.
Written by Katy Mason on behalf of Virtually Smart Ltd
