Customer Service Training: A Priceless Investment

Posted by Deborah Chaddock Brown on June 5, 2009 under Customer Moments, Employee Moments, Training | Be the First to Comment

I was just reading the latest newsletter from John Tschohl, customer service trainer, who talked about the fact that the need for customer service training is just as prevelent today as it was thirty years ago when he wrote his first training program:

Customer service frankly is not much better today than it was 30 years ago. The objections are still the same. If I train my employees they might leave. The solution is to put a big sign on each door to your business that says, “None of our employees have been trained”. In realty, that is what most organizations do.

 

Companies still have unlimited marketing money. Very few organizations understand it is 10 times cheaper to keep a customer than get a new one. Empowerment does not exist. Employees are NOT allowed to make decisions that might keep a customer. Their decision might be wrong. Waiving a $39 late fee is too expensive, but the same organization will spend $300 to acquire a new customer. Few companies know the lifetime value of their customers.

 

There are two great points in that short portion of his newsletter:

 

1.  The fear of losing employees keeps some employers from providing training

2.  Employers fail to understand the value of their existing customer base

 

In my most recent newsletter I ask the question Do you build marketing plans or customer relationships.  Nurturing our existing customer relationships is a critical component to growing our business in today’s competitive environment.  Failing to recognize the value of those who have done business with us – adopting an attitude of “Oh – WE HAVE THEM – must move on to gaining new faces” is setting us up for failure.

 

Customers can tell when we assume that they will stay loyal.  They can tell when we’ve lost interest in wooing them.  How many marriages fail because the couple fails to look their best, act their best and put their best foot forward.  Is it so different with our existing customers?

 

Now compound the problem by not training and TRUSTING our employees to do the best for the customer.

 

One of the reasons people point to the Ritz as an example of customer service is because they:

 

• Train their people
• Give them the tools to ensure a great customer experience
• Trust their employees to do what is necessary to fix a problem
• Empower their employees to represent the brand in a positive way

Do the powers that be worry about losing their staff?  Maybe.  But that doesn’t stop them from doing what’s right with respect to their customer.

 

Here’s a wacky thought: 

 

What if every employer trained their employees to treat every customer as they’d like to be treated. 

 

What if we treated our existing customers like a new love interest – doing everything we can to be the one they keeping choosing year after year? 

 

Imagine that.