Customer service, customer
satisfaction or customer loyalty… What drives your organization?
The answer is simple.
The one which are you focused on!
We hear companies talk about customer satisfaction surveys
or providing great customer service. Are you providing a level of customer
service that will give you customer satisfaction? If you are, I’ll say you are getting it all
wrong, go back rethink it and do it all over again.
Customer service is the bottom of the barrel thinking. Anyone can serve a customers, most of the time it is bare minimum, if that. Customer satisfaction is just one step above. I mean come on, who wants to be just satisfied? Is your goal to meet the minimum
acceptable requirements to satisfy your customer? Is it your intention to leave
a customer feeling that your product or service provides the customer with the basics they were looking for?
My guess is a big fat NO! If you
said yes, then two things come to mind.
First, recheck your values and pride. Do you have pride in your work? If so why
would you accept the bare minimum from your efforts. It’s like being happy getting a C- on a
paper. It was passing, I didn’t fail so
that must be ok. What do you value? Is building a strong healthy business worth going the extra mile?
Second is this: Do you want to be happy? Would you accept the minimum from a product or
service or would you like to see someone really take a interest in you and your
needs. We live in a WIIFM society, What's In It For Me, so
why does customer service seem to be the norm. “I did what I had to and
that’s it.” attitude is so prevalent these days. “Sorry, I can see you are
struggling or under a deadline or need some attention but I’m just too busy to
give a rip.”
Just this morning I had both a good and bad customer experience
in two different locations. Here’s what happened. I was making a presentation to a big customer
this morning. I needed to get four small presentations hole punched and bound.
I went to the place I have been going for the past 7-8 years to get copies, and
presentations made and bound. (I’ll
refrain from using the name for legal purposes but the store sound like an
office tool we use to staple together papers.) About eight years I have used this
store, I have seen managers come and go and spent thousands of dollars in
supplies and printing over the years.
I walked up to the counter in print area and waited 4
minutes to be recognized or acknowledged. (mind you it was 8:22am and there were three people in the store total)
Once I was acknowledged by the counter guy, his attitude was that I was
bothering him. He approached me standing
at the counter, and I’m sure he could see my stress. He asked how can I help you and I let him know
that I was asking a huge favor and then asked him if he could bind these four
pacakages for a big presentation I was on the way to. I had gotten there as early as I could
(8:20am) and really would appreciate him helping me out.
His answer shocked me.
I can’t help you for another hour. My answer must have hit a note. “Oh
boy, I really just need these four packs of paper (10 pages each) hole punched
and bound. I’m headed to my presentation now.” I know I looked stressed and a
bit concerned. His answer was even more incredulous.
He again said “sorry can’t (won't) help you. I can get to you in about an hour
but that’s it. But you can go down the
road to another printing place and try them (FedEx/Kinkos) sorry.” Funny thing
is, I passed 3 managers on my way out the door and one even said goodbye, have
a good day. Are you kidding me? How was I supposed to have a good day when I
now had to drive down the road to get done what I should have been able to get done here? Could the manager run the hole punch machine?
Did the counter guy even try to see how he could help? NOPE!
To continue and show you how it is supposed to be done, I
head down the road about a mile and a half to the FedEx/Kinkos office. I was greeted
immediately by the first employee I saw and he asked how can I help you. I explained my dilemma and his answer was “Ok,
let me set this over here and I’ll help you out.”
He proceeded to take my four small packages of paper (10 pages
each) over to the hole punch, put them into the automated machine, punched
them, put on a cover and back sheet threaded the binder through and was back
in 4 minutes flat (I know I timed it). This
was the same amount of time it took to be acknowledged at the other big box
store. He rang me up with a grand total of $19.96 plus tax. Done and out the
door faster than it had taken me to drive from the aforementioned store (that
sounds like an office desk tool) to the FedEx/Kinko’s store.
I walked out with a new satisfied outlook and impression of
FedEx and a completely different outlook on that big box store that sounds like
an office tool.
Taking that extra time to think through how can I serve or
help the customer is the difference between customer service, (“I can help you
in an hour”) to building customer loyalty, (“let me set this over here for a
couple minutes.”)
Big box store Customer service = FAIL
FedEx/Kinkos customer service = New loyal customer
What is you are focused on in your business? What the
attitude in your organization? Most will say we want to build a strong loyal
customer as is the case with the big box store.
Most will pay the customer lip service.
At the big box store, how hard would it have been to have a manager come
over and help if they were backed up?
Where was the manager checking on how things were going? Why did the employee feel he couldn't call
over a manager? What is the culture YOU have in your organization?
Does your team trust you and really strive for strong loyal
customers or are they giving lip service to your value of customer service?
Either way, it a reflection of your attitude on building loyal customers that
are raving fans. Do you want raving fans or just customers that are satisfied
with your work? Your choice.
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