Sincerely Serving Your Customers

Customer service is all about making your customers’ lives better, more productive, and even more profitable. Let me share an experience I had with the largest and most famous software company in the world, who prided itself as being extremely customer oriented. In fact, they called me to offer to rebate my telephone bill for the six hours I spent with them on the phone attempting to fix a software problem I had while writing my leadership book, The Churchill Factors: Creating Your Finest Hour. Fair enough! They wanted to make amends for the difficulties I was having. That’s the good news. Unfortunately, the fax number they gave me rang in never-never land. When I tried to call their customer service number, it took three directory assistance calls, seven sets of cascading menus, and five “try this number” until I hung up in frustration. I finally sent them three e-mails and haven’t heard from them since (and that was seven years ago!). Customer service must mean more than just lip service!

The average business will never hear from 96% (that’s right, 96%) of its unhappy or dissatisfied customers. Perhaps that’s why some businesses simply do not care about sincerely serving their customers. Okay, so only four in every hundred will register a complaint. That’s not a very big number is it? Surveys reveal that for every one complaint you receive, approximately twenty-five other persons also have problems with your products or services. You’re just seeing the tip of the customer dissatisfaction iceberg. Remember the Titanic didn’t even see the tip, and the gigantic underwater portion sent her to the bottom!

The average satisfied customer will tell four or five others their good news. The average unhappy customer will tell nine others their horror story. (Think about that last time you ordered a steak medium at a nice restaurant and it came well done. How many people did you tell?) A really upset customer will tell twenty or more! That’s a great deal of damage control.

Isn’t it easier to do things right the first time? It saves your time, money, and blood pressure. If you do flub up, correct the problem right away and make the whole restitution process customer friendly. Go the extra mile to reassure your customers that your oversight was a mistake. Personal phone calls carry more impact than impersonal e-mails or letters or no acknowledgement at all that you or your business made a mistake.

Sincere service is not a word game or a new corporate buzzword. A business friend of mine once told me “customer service” was out and that “customer satisfaction” was in. Not long after that, he told me “customer satisfaction” was out and “customer relationship management” was in. Times may change, but people don’t! Customers basically want three things: the finest-quality product or service, the lowest price, and the best service. The realities of business mean that you probably can’t provide all three. Unless you want to play the price war game, I suggest that you never sacrifice your customer service standards. Like a good name, it will only remain untarnished when you deliberately take strong measures to ensure that you walk your talk!