I had the opportunity to speak at the Customer Service Revolution Conference held in Cleveland this week, put on by the DiJulius Group. Over 700 people from companies throughout the United States and Canada were there to learn how they can deliver the best customer service possible. In preparing for my program, I dove deep into my books, articles and notes on everything I had written and read about customer service. I thought it might be helpful if I shared a few of the things I found.
That is a powerful statement and a very final one. What in the world could cause a customer to say that? I find it very confusing why companies persist in doing things that customers hate. No customer wants to hear, “We are experiencing unusually high call volumes.” What that says to customers is, senior management has failed to employ enough staff to properly service incoming calls. It didn’t matter what time they call the company, they will ALWAYS get the same message. A simple way to solve that problem is to quit doing business with them. 33% of Americans say they’ll consider switching companies after just a single instance of poor service.
The problem with most companies today is their employees see the people walking into their place of business or ordering on-line as JUST ANOTHER CUSTOMER. Companies forget how excited they were the day they had their first customer. After years of success, customers are taken for granted. Most of the people working for them weren’t around when they had their first customer. Most employees don’t really give much thought to the fact that customers pay their salaries along with paying for everything else.
In this time of heavy competition and global communication that instantly allows people to share their opinions world-wide with the click of a button, I would suggest it be PRIORITY #1 in any company to figure out what your customers want, need, desire and expect. Define how you want your company to be remembered through the “Eyes of Your Customer.” Make sure everyone in your company knows what that definition is and strives to do everything they can to make it happen.
The most successful companies today are doing everything they can to satisfy their customers. So, the global consulting management firm, Bain & Company, did a study on how those top companies were REALLY doing in satisfying their customers. They found out 80% of the companies thought their service level set them apart from their competition. But when Bain & Company queried their customers, they found an alarming fact … only 8% of the customers believed the company actually exhibited a higher level of service than their competitor. OUCH!
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September 15, 2019
by Robert Stevenson
