Customer Service comes from the heart
A great customer experience happens when the heart of
a staff member connects
with the heart of a customer.
 Unfortunately, this day there was no car for me. After searching in the computer for my reservation, the agent told me they had cancelled the booking on February 8th when I hadn't shown up. I explained the booking was for March the 8th and showed him the confirmation slip as proof. While he disappeared to locate a vehicle, I said to his colleague, "if someone doesn't show, do you ever phone to see what happened to them before cancelling the booking ? especially if the reservation was made by a major company or a travel agent with whom you do a lot of work?" "No," she said without blinking. We don't bother."
Doesn't that say it all? Great customer service is not driven by rational
thinking. The kind of experience your customers receive depends upon how your
staff behave, and how your staff behave depends upon how they feel. Customer
service is all about emotion. The best step you can take to improve your customers'
experience is to ensure your staff care. Recently I gave a speech at a prestigious
yacht club to an audience of business owners and chief executives.
The whiteboard in the room was scratched and dented, and the markers had no
ink. Clearly, neither the staff nor their managers cared enough about their
customer (or me, for that matter) to provide a presentable looking board or
pens that wrote. Unless your staff care enough about their customers to see
the world through their eyes and to pay attention to detail, service quality
will be poor and your customers disappointed.
When things go wrong
Caring is even more important when things go wrong. People in today's society
are quite forgiving. Customers understand that systems fail and people make
mistakes. But when the unplanned happens, customers expect their supplier will
act with urgency. They expect the supplier will investigate why things went
wrong and notjust close the file. Customers want their supplier's staff to
empathise and show concern at their plight. And they certainly expect considerable
effort will be expended to put things right as quickly as possible. Like most
other things, caring starts at the top. If you want your staff to care about
your customers, you must demonstrate that
you care. Last December, I had two bad experiences with company telephone
systems: one involving a major credit card company and one an international
finance company. In each case I contacted the New Zealand CEO and expressed
my dissatisfaction. Both were very apologetic, of course, and agreed that their
systems should work better. One said he would look into it and get back to me.
The other, after hearing that customer service is my passion, suggested we meet
in January. I have never heard back from either.
Do you think their staff are likely to care about their customers?
Who pays the wages?
Another way to encourage staff to give customers a great experience is to help
them understand that customers pay the wages (and usually all the company's
other expenses). All management does is capture a small amount of the money
as it flows from the customers to the company's staff and suppliers. Staff
must understand that unless you are losing money or borrowing for expansion,
100 percent of your revenue comes from your customers. Doesn't that make them
worth caring about? Continually tell your staff that (a) their boss is the
customer because (b) they work for the customer because (c) they are paid by
the customer. Show them how to calculate the lifetime value (LTV) of a customer
(LTV equals the annual revenue from that customer multiplied by 20 years).
This is the amount the company will lose if that customer takes their business
elsewhere. Then explain that according to recent New Zealand research, unhappy
customers tell 13 other people about their bad experience. if their story persuaded
even only half of those who heard it not to do business with your company,
what would that cost? A great customer experience is what happens when the
heart of a staff member connects with the heart of a customer. That won't happen
unless you can convince your staff to care.
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