Good Customer Service made simple

Good customer service is the lifeblood of any business. You can offer promotions and slash prices to bring in as many new customers as you want, but unless you can get some of those customers to come back, your business won’t be profitable for long.

Good customer service is all about bringing customers back. And about sending them away happy – happy enough to pass positive feedback about your business along to others, who may then try the product or service you offer for themselves and in their turn become repeat customers.

If you’re a good salesperson, you can sell anything to anyone once. But it will be your approach to customer service that determines whether or not you’ll ever be able to sell that person anything else. The essence of good customer service is forming a relationship with customers – a relationship that that individual customer feels that he would like to pursue.

How do you go about forming such a relationship? By remembering the one true secret of good customer service and acting accordingly; “You will be judged by what you do, not what you say.”

I know this verges on the kind of statement that’s often seen on a sampler, but providing good customer service is a simple thing. If you truly want to have good customer service, all you have to do is ensure that your business consistently does these things:

Earlier to my current assignment, I was a Branch Manager at a leading Private Life Insurer in India. My main profile was in servicing external as well as internal customers. Good customer servicing need not be with the one who buys your product and walk into your premises. They can your inter-departmental colleagues, intra-departmental peers or managers. I had the privilege of meeting customers who are unhappy to people who were extremely happy. Please remember that I regret using the word “IRATE” as no customer who speaks loud or shouts are irate. This is one good lesson I learned from Indian Financial services industry.

I would like to highlight one of the best experience I had with an unhappy customer. This customer was aged and had a problem in his auto-debit facility. He was getting transferred to different parts of India. He had his bank account in Bangalore and had given his standing instruction from this account. After few months there was problem in debiting his account for technical reasons. He was not aware of it as he got transferred and not able to keep track of his policy status. He had inquired on the problem with one of the branch in the next month and had given request to re-debit. But again the debit was not effective. Since its outside the purview of the insurer to analyze as the onus is with the bank, the earlier request was futile. He came to my branch with this problem but was unhappy that monthly premiums can be paid by auto-debit only. He wanted to cancel the policy but the same cannot be done as the policy is nearly an year old. He is fine to forgive the money paid for few months. We tried to convey the product terms that surrender is not possible. But he was slowly increasing and on the limit.

I roped in and took charge of the customer from the executive. I made him comfortable in a separate room and offered him water as it was shining outside. I already analyzed the problem before meeting him and not asked him on his problem. I was listening to him and not uttered a word when he was talking. I made him comfortable by introducing myself and assured him first that I will be able to give him a solution. I asked him that the problem requires some more time and asked for it. Few days later I called him, updated the status of the problem and made him understand we are here working on the problem. That made him feel happy as this was out of the bound. On the day before the promised date, we called him though he was out of station and updated the necessary solution.

He was extremely happy for the servicing provided by us and had become a repeat customer. Even this day whenever I had a chance to meet him outside office he speaks friendly and inquires on health. As you see the customer who was unhappy earlier can be made a more loyal customer. There are some basic etiquettes which a customer might or might not expect from us. But doing them pro-actively can win customers. The important thing to note here are

Ø Understanding the customer problem

Ø Make him feel comfortable

Ø Assure him that we are here to service him.

Ø Buy comfortable time and make promise.

Ø Update status in spite of within delivery time or not.

Ø Deliver as promised.

1) Answer your phone.

Get call forwarding. Or an answering service. Hire staff if you need to. But make sure that someone is picking up the phone when someone calls your business. (Notice I say “someone”. People who call want to talk to a live person, not a “fake recorded robot”.)

2) Don’t make promises unless you WILL keep them.

Not plan to keep them. Will keep them. Reliability is one of the keys to any good relationship, and good customer service is no exception. If you say, “Your new bedroom furniture will be delivered on Tuesday”, make sure it is delivered on Tuesday. Otherwise, don’t say it. The same rule applies to client appointments, deadlines, etc.. Think before you give any promise – because nothing annoys customers more than a broken one.

3) Listen to your customers.

Is there anything more exasperating than telling someone what you want or what your problem is and then discovering that that person hasn’t been paying attention and needs to have it explained again? From a customer’s point of view, I doubt it. Can the sales pitches and the product babble. Let your customer talk and show him that you are listening by making the appropriate responses, such as suggesting how to solve the problem.

4) Deal with complaints.

No one likes hearing complaints, and many of us have developed a reflex shrug, saying, “You can’t please all the people all the time”. Maybe not, but if you give the complaint your attention, you may be able to please this one person this one time - and position your business to reap the benefits of good customer service.

5) Be helpful - even if there’s no immediate profit in it.

The other day I popped into a local watch shop because I had lost the small piece that clips the pieces of my watch band together. When I explained the problem, the proprietor said that he thought he might have one lying around. He found it, attached it to my watch band – and charged me nothing! Where do you think I’ll go when I need a new watch band or even a new watch?

6) Train your staff (if you have any) to be ALWAYS helpful, courteous, and knowledgeable.

Do it yourself or hire someone to train them. Talk to them about good customer service and what it is (and isn’t) regularly. Most importantly, give every member of your staff enough information and power to make those small customer-pleasing decisions, so he never has to say, “I don’t know, but so-and-so will be back at...”

7) Take the extra step.

For instance, if someone walks into your store and asks you to help them find something, don’t just say, “It’s in Aisle 3.” Lead the customer to the item. Better yet, wait and see if he has questions about it, or further needs. Whatever the extra step may be, if you want to provide good customer service, take it. They may not say so to you, but people notice when people make an extra effort and will tell other people.

8) Throw in something extra.

Whether it’s a coupon for a future discount, additional information on how to use the product, or a genuine smile, people love to get more than they thought they were getting. And don’t think that a gesture has to be large to be effective. The local art framer that we use attaches a package of picture hangers to every picture he frames. A small thing, but so appreciated.

And the best part? The irony of good customer service is that over time it will bring in more new customers than promotions and price slashing ever did!

Remember always “CUSTOMER IS KING”