How to Provide Exceptional Customer Service
About the Authors:
NEIL FLANAGAN and JARVIS FINGER
World-renowned business strategists and authors of several international best-selling books on management. Neil is a sought-after keynote, conference and motivational speaker and Jarvis is the award-winning founder and editor of Australia's best known magazine for school administrators.
It has been said that service management is a total organisational approach that makes quality of service, as perceived by the customer, the number one driving force for the operation of any business. But so often managers pay only lip-service to customer service— they're too tied down with the day-to-day concerns of production, union negotiations, meetings, paperwork, budget, and personnel matters. What can you do to improve your organisation's service? Why not start with these basic ideas…
1. Let no customer wait more than three minutes.
Time is money—for the customer too. If you work at minimising customer waiting time to no more than three minutes, you'll gain more customers than you'll lose.
2. Do a little extra each time.
Always try to exceed customer expectations by providing an unsolicited little extra—it's called value-adding. When your car is serviced, and the dealer blackens your tyres at no charge and leaves a chocolate bar on the driver's seat, chances are you'll return.
3. Redress a customer concern immediately.
There are no 'little' problems when it comes to customer service. You must take action, without hesitation, to redress any shortfall in service or any product defect. Any delay in meeting a dissatisfied customer's needs could result in alienation and loss of business. On the other hand, prompt action can create a perception of a higher standard of company performance than if the problem had not occurred in the first place!
4. Take five seconds to answer the phone.
The telephone is often the first—and often the final—point of contact for some customers. Get that phone answered before its fourth ring. Any undue delay, any unanswered call, any engaged signal—and your company's goodwill could suffer, to say nothing of lost business.
5. Seek staff ideas on how to improve service.
Many of the best ideas for improving customer service come from those who deal with your customers—your staff. Implement their ideas whenever possible and provide encouraging feedback on suggestions that can't be used.
6. Attend to detail.
The ultimate test of a really caring attitude towards the customer is your attention to detail. It's been calculated that 80 per cent of customer alienation comes from getting 20 per cent of the detail wrong. While customers don't expect perfection, they do expect you to recover quickly and sympathetically.
7. Keep those promises.
Companies win customers by making promises about service—and retain customers by keeping those promises. The more promises you, your company or your staff make about quality, responsiveness, reliability etc, the more they must be kept. So, if a staff member promises to 'get back to' a customer today, they'd better do it— even if there's nothing to report.
8. Monitor those things you often don't notice.
How do your face-to-face people present themselves dress-wise and in terms of attitude? What about the appearance of that ageing sign, tired company logo or old-fashioned letterhead? Do your people smile and say thank-you? How's your receptionist's telephone answering technique? Have you checked lately? Such basic outward signs are vital in securing a customer's confidence that the service you provide is reliable, courteous, and of high quality.
9. Make sure your staff are 'in the know'.
Your company can only be judged as the best provider if your staff are 'in the know'. Are your employees familiar with the product? Do they know what service is really about? Do they know the company? How to get things done? How to solve problems? Do they know regular customers by name?
10. Be confident that everything works.
A failure in the system is simply a breakdown in management. If you are guaranteeing a service, make sure the system works— the car park barrier, the directions from the foyer, the lift to your office, the bell at reception, the complimentary drink dispenser... through to the eventual.
11. Get to the customers before they get to you.
Things inevitably go wrong. Often it's not your fault, e.g. your service person gets held up in traffic. Sometimes it is, e.g. you under-estimated the spare parts required. Whatever the reason, if you've made a promise to customers that cannot be kept, it's essential that you inform them before they inform you. Chances are then that they'll be sympathetic rather than angry, and they might even thank you for keeping them advised.
Just about Everything a Manager Needs to Know
By Neil Flanagan and Jarvis Finger
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