Being treated with the attitude of indifference is as bad if not worse than being treated with rudeness.
Now usually someone will post a discussion point and there will be comments for a few days and then people move on to the next topic but this discussion has been continuing as one of the top items in the group for the entire three months. Everyone agrees that indifference is just as bad as outright rudeness. The discussions have talked more about the root of the problem. Some blame the economy or a lack of training or a lack of motivation or hiring the wrong people or bottom line management but the general consensus is that there is a growing problem with the attitude of our nation’s employees and how they treat customers.
My take? It is a culture thing. If the company culture is one that focuses on sales and profitability before customers – then sooner or later the customer becomes a distraction or an interruption in the day rather than our reason for being.
However, if everyone is dedicated to uncovering and resolving the customer’s needs then the sales and profitablity will take care of itself. Customers remember when they’ve truly been seen as important rather than cash in the register.
So I ask you – what do you think? Is it just this younger generation that doesn’t understand the value of the customer? Is it a lack of training and focus? Are we hiring indifferent people?
Are you on e-Harmony? Do you know someone who is? Well, if so you know that during the initial communication stage each party has the opportunity to share their relationship must-haves and can’t-stands. You can pick from a set list of options or make up your own. For example, must-haves might be:
Must love animals and my children (in that order)
Must have a motorcycle and know how to use it
Must have experience as a roadie for the Grateful Dead
Can’t stands might be:
Liars, cheats and bigots
Brussel Sprouts
Long walks on a short pier
Okay, you get the idea. So now let’s think about our customers. If they put together a list of must-haves and can’t stands, what would they include?
Must Haves:
Honesty. Including when you’ve made a mistake or can’t make a deadline – just be honest.
Quality. Experience, product, service.
Listening skills. Not just to what I say I want and need but what is left unsaid – the ability to read between the lines is a plus.
Knowledge. As a customer, I may think I know what I want, but if you ask the right questions and listen carefully, you’ll make recommendations based on what I need
Can’t stands:
Over enthusiastic sales people who start selling before I’ve told them what I want.
To be treated like a dollar sign instead of a person.
Boosters who don’t deliver.
People who say disparaging things about the competition.
If you were to ask your customers for their must-haves and can’t stands would you be surprised by their answers?
It all comes down to thoroughly understanding the customer’s expectations. As a freelance writer, I assume people want content that is accurate, polished, compelling and on time. But I recently heard a writer say her boss just wanted it written: “don’t worry about getting it right, just get it written.” Wow, that was a surprise.
It would be an interesting exercise for you to make the list and then ask your staff to do the same. Would there be any surprises? Compare those answers with those of your customers – are there disconnects?
I had an aha moment a few months back. In all this talk about customer service and building relationships and earning customer’s loyalty I suddenly asked myself:
“Who decides what great customer service looks like?”
In every company I’ve been with, a team of executives and operational leaders will sit around a room and decide how many rings the phone should go before answering and how many seconds a customer coming into a store must be greeted within and what greeting the employee should use. But has anyone ever actually asked the customer what is important to them?
Do they care if we answer the phone by the third ring if, when we answer, it is with a curt “Hello, Burger Town, what do you want?” or worse yet “Hello and thank you for calling Burger Town, home of the double stacked burger made just the way you want it where for a limited time only you can get two burgers for the price of one, how can I help you?”
The more I thought about it, the more I wondered how often businesses ask the customer what is important to them. We may be establishing policies and measuring success for our employees against something the customer could care less about.
In this article, How Do You Define Customer Service, I expand my thoughts on customer service and determining what we should be striving to do based on what the customers finds valuable.
But in the meantime – HOW DO YOU DEFINE CUSTOMER SERVICE? As a customer does great customer service vary depending on the type of shopping/business transaction or are there a few basic must-haves. As a business executive – what do you expect every customer to receive and how did you determine those criteria?
I’m on vacation.I’ve been looking forward to this week for more than half a year.A cabin in the Smokey Mountains of Gatlinburg, TN.Reconnecting with nature that fuels my creative juices so that I can write my next book: Make or Break Moments: Revolutionizing Customer Relationships.
The website pictures look enticing – log buildings built into the side of the mountain, sun streaming down and you can almost hear the robins singing in the spring air. Ahhhh.
I arrived on Saturday to discover quite a different experience.
The largest waterpark in the South is just seven steps outside my room.Instead of robins chirping I hear Robin and Robert and Rita screaming at Mommy and Daddy, “But I don’t want to go to bed!”
Instead of a log cabin I’m in a room connected to the two most restless people in the world.If they slam their door one more time I’M GOING TO GIVE THEM SOMETHING TO SLAM THE DOOR ABOUT!
Truthfully, the Westgate Smokey Mountains Resort is beautiful, clean, upscale and a wonderful place to bring your family for a week of fun. I have found every staff member to be extremely helpful and friendly.
Just a few miles away (allow about an hour to drive four miles) is Dollywood, Elvis impersonators, a Jurassic Park ride, mini-golf, Ripley’s Believe it or Not, haunted fun houses and some upside down building called the Wonder Works.Lots to see and do for a family.If there is a recession going on, no one has told this part of Tennessee because it is packed with people spending money and having a great time.
Unless you EXPECTED a quiet, solitary connection with nature to write and reflect and rest.
Then it is just pure hell.
Last night there was a Patsy Cline tribute concert.I walked over to the concert from dinner (food here is wonderful, by the way) and sat with a couple from out west.They’d arrived a day before me and I asked what they thought.They exchanged looks and the husband said “I’ll never be back.”
“We expected a lovely, quiet cabin in the woods,” explained the wife.
“And this place is anything but quiet,” he added.
The Westgate is highly rated by Interval International, the company I have an account with so that I can trade my Cancun time share for other vacation spots.Please know – this is a great place to vacation – if you are looking for a family spot and indoor water adventures.
Yet the couple I sat with last night is having a miserable vacation and plan to leave early.Why?Their expectations were missed by a mile.
So whose fault is that?
This morning I decided to make the best of it.I had brought all my office equipment and food for a week (there is a mini kitchen in my room) and I set about the business of being creative.However after two hours the outdoors beckoned.
I went in search of a quiet spot – surely there was a porch or balcony, a chair or a bench that I could call my own.I asked the security guard greeting new arrivals in the parking lot.I asked the shuttle drivers.I asked at the concierge.
“Hmmm,” they all pondered.“Nope.Don’t think we have anything like that.You can sit here in the lobby if you want.”I looked around at the people waiting to check in, the kids running through from the gift shop and wondered if my iPod ear-buds would block out the chaos enough so that I could write.
But what about the fresh air?
“Oh, there is a picnic table on the other side of that building,” the woman at the concierge suggested.“No one ever uses it because I don’t think they know it’s there.”
I rolled my office over to the other side of the building to discover a picnic table nestled between the parked cars and the trash dumpster.Perhaps a little too much outdoors for my creative juices.
So here I sit, in the game room which is surprisingly empty.My view is the soda pop vending machine and the water cooler.
Gotta tell you: the view from my porch at home is a lot more appealing.
Expectations.
If we miss our customer’s expectations; we miss the opportunity to build a relationship, to earn their loyalty and ensure their return.
How can you gauge expectation?It requires conversation.It requires active listening.
Will this resort care that the couple I met are unhappy with their experience or that I’m struggling to find my piece of outdoors in which to write?
No.Why?We aren’t their target customer.
Exceeding expectations isn’t always the responsibility of the company.We as consumers also share a bit of the responsibility.If we have certain expectations, we need to ask the right questions and do our homework to ensure we aren’t setting ourselves up for disappointment.
Will I recommend Westgate Resortshere in Gatlinburg?Actually, YES.It is a wonderful place for fun and family.Will I return?I just might but next time I’ll leave the computer at home, bring my kids and our bathing suits!
p.s. After writing this I set my computer aside and hiked the trails on property to the top of the nearby mountain. Glorious! Nature abounds.
I was at a chamber lunch the other day and got to chatting with one of my seat mates about my favorite subject. Customer Service. He told me about an experience his son had while working as the assistant manager of a national shoe retailer.
“He was waiting on a woman who really fell in love with a particular shoe. He didn’t have the shoe in her size in the right color. Rather then talk her into something else or just send her on her way, he got on the phone and called around until he found a store – on the other side of the country – that had exactly what she wanted.”
Going the extra mile or just meeting the customer needs? So what happened?
“She was so pleased with his efforts that she came back and brought several of her friends.”
That’s what customer service is all about. If you keep your eye on exceeding customer expectations it pays you in the dividends of referrals and repeat business.
But there is a kicker to this story.
“Yeah, my son did a great job but his boss yelled at him. He said: You can’t devote that kind of time to a customer. We need to just sell shoes and get on to the next customer.”
My lunch partner explained that eventually his son moved on to take on other stores and then regions and now he is a key executive in the retail world. The secret to his success? Putting the customer first. Focusing on exceeding the customer’s expectations.
I like that story. Great success all based on the foundation of putting the customer first. Do you have a story to share?
Yesterday President George W. Bush held his final press conference of his presidency. It was his 47th conference in eight years. That’s about one opportunity to communicate his message every OTHER month.
In contrast, the President Elect, Barack Obama has held 16 press meetings since being elected November 4, 2008. That’s about one every four DAYS!
Times are tough. Questions from the audience are challenging. The news isn’t good.
Our natural instinct, when the news is bad, is to avoid confrontation, ignore the situation or hope someone else will take the heat. Whether the audience is the American population or one single customer – the surest way to build a relationship is to communicate early, honestly and on a regular basis.
Even when you don’t have all the answers.
I started with Pearle Vision as a store manager. We sold and made the glasses. Some prescriptions were easy to make and some were more challenging. At the time of the sale we would give a time or date when the glasses would be ready and invited the customer to return for their custom-made glasses.
On occasion, there would be a problem with the glasses – the frame wasn’t available, the lens broke in the edger or the completed product didn’t pass the final inspection; any of these occurrences would cause a delay in the product delivery.
As a new manager, I soon learned that some of the employees failed to notify the customer in the case of the delay. I don’t know if they hoped the customer would forget about the due date or if they feared a confrontational discussion but for whatever the reason – they failed to communicate to the customer.
I quickly changed that process.
Building customer relationships requires open and honest communication – ESPECIALLY when the news isn’t good. Customers are willing to understand and forgive if we keep them in the loop. So when it comes to communicating with customers:
Share the information available
If you don’t have the answers – be honest and then let them know how you are going about getting the information
If you’ve made a promise (deadline or product) that you discover you can’t keep – call immediately to let the customer know
Set realistic expectations. Customer would rather know the truth than to be told what you think they want to hear.
Under promise and over deliver
If customers are left to guess – they will think the worst so keep them regularly informed
Regardless of your political viewpoint – hopefully you can respect Obama’s desire to keep us informed rather than in the dark. Follow his example and keep your customers informed.
The alarm went off at 5:45am. Ugh. I fully expected my children to give me a hard time about getting up. A middle schooler and a high schooler, they aren’t as anamored with school as they once were.
However, there we all were, sharing breakfast at 6:30am – six minutes ahead of schedule. Hmmm. That was nice.
I balanced my checkbook and discovered that the check for the license bureau hadn’t cashed which meant my tags expired five days ago. Egads. I drove 30 minutes to the office to see if I could pay for my tags in person fully expecting a long wait and a difficult discussion.
“Do you still lease the vehicle?”
“No, I bought it in February,” I replied.
“Oh – that’s why it wasn’t cashed – you need new plates. Can you come back with your title and proof of your e-check?”
No scolding. No chastising. No rude dismissive attitude. In fact, she leaned over the counter and said “Drive nice and slow and come right back. We’re here until 6:30pm”
Wasn’t that nice? DMV – nice. I always thought that was an oxymoron. Now whose the moron? Me. Gee, driving on illegal plates for 11 months!
Well, ignornance is certainly bliss – I was never so careful as I was after learning my plates were ILLEGAL. Home I went to retrieve the title – a quick trip to for an updated e-check (everything was a-okay and it was free! Another unexpected delight) and back to the DMV where I was wisked to the head of the line. (okay I was the only customer but don’t you usually have to wait? I brought a book expecting the wait to be long.)
Zip-zip-zip, I had new plates. Wait. I don’t have any tools. “No problem,” the clerk said. “Here is a flathead and a Philips screwdriver.”
Out I went to change my plates that are permanently attached to my car. They haven’t been changed since 2003. The screws aren’t budging. I returned the tools afraid I would have to drive ever so carefully home with the old plates.
“Try Goodyear next door,” one of the clerks over heard my situation. “I bet they can help.”
I drove over to Goodyear and Andy came out and changed my plates. For the record – he couldn’t get them off with the screw driver either.
“There you go,” he said, when the task was done.
“Great! How much do I owe you?”
“Nothing. Just come back again when you need us.”
Color me DELIGHTED.
Did anyone offer me anything extraordinary? Nope.
Did it cost anyone anything to exceed my expectations? Not really.
How am I feeling? Pretty terrific! I started out the day with a set of expectations and each one was exceeded just enough to make me feel great.
It really doesn’t take a whole lot to make someone’s day extra special. What did you do today to exceed someone’s expectations? How did it make them feel? How did YOU feel?
I was having a conversation with my Dad the other day about Make or Break Moments and he said, “You can’t have a make or break moment without something to compare it to.”
I had to stop and think about that for a minute. I define make or break moments as those times of interaction; first impressions, dissatisfied customers, customers with unknowing needs, etc. I thought, “if the moment is the first moment – how is there any history for comparison?”
But of course we all have an encyclopedia of historical moments that we draw from – unconsciously most of the time – but they impact how we view a given circumstance.
He gave a great example: shopping for a car. When was the last time you went to a car dealer? The lot is full. Full of cars waiting to be sold, needing service, shopping – cars and cars and cars.
You pull into the lot and don’t know where to park. There is no clear area and without double parking and perhaps blocking someone in – you aren’t sure. So you find a little spot of pavement to call your own, park the car and begin the shopping experience. This is normal. You think nothing of it.
My Dad told of an experience he at a Saturn dealer where he drove into the lot to discover an area by the building with a big sign “Shoppers Welcome to Park Here.”
It was a make or break moment. He had a positive customer interaction without ever talking to a person. He felt welcome the minute he entered the lot. And because he’d had a prior experience for comparison it became a moment that EXCEEDED his expectations.
So what does that mean for sales associates and employees looking to serve the needs of our customers?
If we recognize that almost every moment has a historical moment for comparison – we have to strive to exceed the customer’s expectations and in doing so, start the process of building loyalty and building a relationship.
They say history repeats itself. If that’s true – how can you make sure the newest historical moment is the best yet?
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I’m a member of the Customer 1st LinkedIn group and about three months ago Teri Yanovitch posted this discussion starter:
I was at a chamber lunch the other day and got to chatting with one of my seat mates about my favorite subject. Customer Service. He told me about an experience his son had while working as the assistant manager of a national shoe retailer. 
