The Customer Is Right!

Don’t Underestimate the Importance of Good Customer Service

According to a recent study conducted by PricewaterhouseCoopers:

“When customers feel appreciated, companies gain measurable benefits—including the chance to win more of their customers’ spending dollars. The payoffs for valued, great experiences are tangible: up to a 16% price premium on products and services, plus increased loyalty.”

In order to develop a strategy that puts the customer first, an environment needs to be created where the customer will receive the best possible service when employees are empowered to make this happen. This is not to say you should be lenient with your policies, but you need to have a degree of flexibility. Just remember, a lost customer could spread the word of their discontent, resulting in more lost customers. Review the most common reasons for poor customer service:

• Too many rules—Employees lack creativity in problem solving. Rules are followed and good solutions are not developed because employees do not want to jeopardize their jobs.

• Lip service, not customer service—Customer service is really only a name for customer complaints. Time is spent trying to fix problems rather than preventing them from occurring in the first place.

• Powerless employees—Approval is needed by a manager for small problems that can easily be solved by a good employee. This problem leads to long lines and time-consuming waits by the customer, who then refuses to come back-business operations turns a small problem into a large one.

• Unmotivated employees—Personnel are not encouraged to please the customer because there is no merit in it for them.

• Bad communication—Coordination of functions does not exist-one person may write an order while another picks it off a warehouse shelf and someone else delivers it to the customer. This can result in miscommunication, incorrect goods or services, and time delays.

• Arbitrary policies—Policies that are followed blindly without room for situational allowances may result in angry customers. For example, a store’s return policy of 30 days prevents a customer who, with good reason, could not get back to the store in time from receiving a refund. That customer will refuse to do business there anymore.