Customer Service Separates Winning Ventures From Losers
Despite the recent proliferation of “have it your way” marketing appeals, more and more consumers seem to be lamenting the “second-class citizen” treatment they too often receive from so-called “customer service” personnel.
Q: Is it me, or am I actually witnessing a major league meltdown in customer service? I’m not picky, but I find it increasingly rare to be treated well (even civilly) by people whose livelihood depends on me.
A: You’re not alone. One of the most common requests for help I get from owners of retail and service businesses concerns their frustration with the behavior of employees who are supposed to be building lasting bridges to their customers.
Companies are coming to realize that one of the few competitive distinctions they can attain in today’s crowded marketplace involves their customer relationships. In their new book, The Discipline of Market Leaders, Michael Treacy and Fred Wiersema assert that “customer intimacy” is one of three value disciplines that a firm can employ to distinguish itself in a world where success will not come from one-time transactions but from enduring relationships.
In the final analysis, it is a firm’s front-line employees who are ultimately responsible for these critical “connections.” This type of an approach to the market requires customer contacts that are quality-consistent, and effected by sensitive, well-trained, service-focused employees.
To accomplish this kind of a mission, employees require continuous training and customer-service “orientations.” Creative compensation and other motivating rewards have to be employed to reinforce such behavior.
Above all, a firm’s contact personnel must be empowered to make on-the-spot customer-benefiting decisions - to act unilaterally and spontaneously for its customers’ benefit as circumstances require.
Customer contact employees often don’t realize how vitally important they are. The nature of their work and their prerogatives and rewards should be designed to impress them with their value. Indeed, they should be seen by all parties - their employer, their customers, and themselves - as the firm’s key to outstanding performance.
The payoff to the firm will be customer loyalty, a priceless asset. Strong loyalty will increase a firm’s shareholder value as the time and money devoted to re-selling customers decreases.
Furthermore, strong customer ties allow a company to more effectively and economically sell new and different products as they are introduced. Customer loyalty bred of such an affiliation will also constitute an insurmountable obstacle for turf-coveting competition.
While employer awareness in this regard is growing, most small and medium-size businesses still have a long way to go. In fact, many firms seem to be moving in the opposite direction, implementing efficient but customer-maddening “improvements” like automated voice-mail systems - the kind with forty-seven options that have to be articulated before you can talk to anybody - and low-cost, but woefully unprepared, inexperienced and unsupported help.
The best way to help a business with a service deficiency is to write a letter directly to its owners or senior managers with the date and details of the low-grade service insult you encountered.
If the best you get in return is a form letter, and there’s no visible improvement in treatment upon your next visit, it’s time to move on. You did your part; it’s time to find a value provider who understands and appreciates you for what you are … his or her best source of dependable revenue.
A current symptom of the malaise among sales and service employees is the “sorry ‘bout that” response that they seem to parrot every time they let a customer down in spades.
Arguably, this rote reply is the most over-used chunk of “unintimate” customer communications babble employed today. It appears to be universally embraced by employees who believe they can quickly and painlessly mollify customers in the face of service breakdowns that shouldn’t be tolerated even if the goods or services at issue were being given away.
You can help in the struggle for better service. Next time your importance in the consumption equation is summarily dismissed with a smarmy “sorry ‘bout that,” make up your mind, then and there, to assume permanent ex-customer status unless, upon questioning, the clerk really knows what went wrong, why it happened, how and when it can be fixed, and what he or she can do for you beyond the call of duty in the meantime.
A smile and just one tear of genuine regret would be nice, too. (To employees who think I’m coming down too hard on them, I say: “Sorry ‘bout that.”)
xxxx Paul Willax is the Sandifur Distinguished Professor of Entrepreneurship at Eastern Washington University.