Growing Your Business - With Customer
Service
What is Good Customer Service? What is Exceeding
Expectations?
by
Kate Tammemagi
Good
customer service is key to any business. Your competitors are competing with
you not only in terms of products and price, but also in terms of their
experience of your service and your people. In times of recession and low
spending, good customer service can give us an edge. However, do we know exactly
what makes customer service GOOD?
Three
Types of Customer Experience
Imagine
a Customer in any situation. It could be buying in a shop, or interacting by
telephone, or in a business-to-business situation. There are three types of
experience that the customer can have in this situation.
The
first is the PERFECT experience, the Customer's expectations are totally met.
The Customer gets what they want, the quality is high, good value for money and
fast, efficient service. There are no negatives for this Customer, everything
was exactly as they would expect.
The
second type of experience is the NEGATIVE experience, expectations are not met.
Again in a shop, the Customer may not find what they want, or the quality is
poor, or the price does not provide good value for money. It is easy for the
business owner to check these contributors to a negative experience, but it
takes a high degree of awareness to see the negative triggers on the customer
service side of the business.
In a
shop, it may be the smell, or the hygiene, or the way the shop is laid out. It
could be long queues, or someone stacking shelves when they should be serving.
But the simple things like lack of eye contact, lack of courtesy, chewing or
chatting to a colleague can create the most negative experiences. On the
telephone the equivalent might be silence, not using the Customer's name, using
negative language or breathing heavily into the phone.
Exceeding Expectations, The Positive Experience
Many
people think that the perfect experience outlined above is the ideal, GOOD
customer service, but it is not. It is true that businesses must be keenly aware
of what will trigger a negative experience so they can avoid this, and they must
be able to identify what will make up the perfect experience. However, this will
NOT keep Customer's coming back! Perfection is not enough.
Fast
efficient service from a smiling, courteous Customer Service person is EXPECTED.
It will not leave a positive impression with the Customer, and they will not
remember it. It is a NEUTRAL, highly forgettable experience. They will
definitely remember the negative experience. We can all remember bad experiences
we have had, and we will relate these at every opportunity.
This is
the goal of GOOD customer service, to create a positive and equally memorable
experience. To do this, you must deliver the EXTRA positive experience, the
extra 10.
Examples of Exceeding Expectations
How to
deliver the extra positive experience is unique to every business. It is that
extra personal touch, or going the extra mile. When you go looking for the extra
10%, you will find good examples in your line of work. In a shop, it may be the
attendant who will go the extra mile to hunt for what you want. It may be that
they remember your order and have it ready when you come in, or that they run
short of your product but they hold the last one for you, their regular
Customer.
On a
telephone it may be the Customer Service agent who really will chase that other
department to answer your query, and who will call you back to make sure you are
satisfied. Even more simply, it is the Customer Service agent who gets the job
done quickly and easily, and also uses so many positive, cheerful words that the
whole process was a pleasure for you.
Improving Customer Service
The
simplest way to improve your customer service is to improve your ability to
identify these three types of experience in YOUR business, or in each
department.
1. What makes up the perfect experience? What are the essentials?
2. What will trigger a negative? What things must we avoid doing?
3. What will deliver the extra positive experience? What can we do to go
the extra mile? What will add that extra personal touch in an appropriate way?
Work on
these with your Team on a regular basis, and you will always improve your
Customer's experience of your organization.
Kate
Tammemagi provides
Customer Care Training in Ireland. She designs fully tailored
Customer Care Courses in Businesses and Call Centres.
Article
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