Providing excellent customer service is essential to the long-term viability of every business.
It is the ultimate mission, the number one priority, goal and that it is why we are in business.
In meeting after meeting with regards to customer service in the 21st century, heads of industries, service sectors, utilities and government try to convince the audience how much they believe in customer service.
It is applied in any organization such as hospitality industry, retail industry and the public sector.
Expanding your definition of service
How you define services shapes every interaction you have with your customers.
If you hold the common idea that service is only giving customers what they want, you may well paint yourself into a corner every time a customer asks for something that is impossible for you to provide.
If, on the other hand, you expand your definition of service to include fulfilling the multitude of less obvious customer needs, you will never encounter a time when you can’t provide your customers with some level of service.
By addressing less obvious customer needs such as listening with empathy to customers when they have a problem or providing options and alternatives when you can’t give customers exactly what they want, you widen the gap between you and your competitors.
Customer services should provide the customer with more than a product or an action on his or her behalf.
It should provide satisfaction.
Therefore, the customer must walk away pleased at the result of the transaction not just content but actually happy.
A happy customer will continue to be a buying customer and a retuning customer.
Identify your customers.
Too often, the definition of customer is limited to someone who is outside of our company.
Look up customer in your dictionary.
The first definition of customer is a person who buys.
The second definition is a person with whom one has dealings.
In fact, everyone who works in a company has customers regardless of whether they work with external, paying customers or internal co-workers.
Customers fall into external and internal categories.
The external customer
These are the people you deal with, either face-to-face or over the phone, who buy products or services from you.
They are customers in the traditional sense of the word.
Without them there would be no sales, no business, and no salary.
If your definition of a customer stops here, you are only seeing half the picture. OH YES!
The internal customer
The other half of the picture is the people who work inside your organization and rely on you for the services, products, and information that they need to get their jobs done.
They are not traditional customers, yet they need the same tender, loving care you give to your external customers.
By expanding your definition of a customer to include your co-workers, you are taking a vital step toward excellent service.
The internal customer chain works both ways.
Sometimes you are the customer and other times you are the service provider.
For example in the banking sector, a co-worker may come to the banking hall to withdraw or deposit money for themselves.
In this case, you (tellers) are the service provider because you are giving him or her what he/she needs.
However, few minutes later, you may turn around and go to that same co-worker and ask for help with information, now you are the customer.
The relationship between internal customers and external customers is what forms the customer chain.
If you have a back room kind of job where you rarely see the light of day, let alone a living, breathing customer, you can easily begin to feel that your work has little or no impact on external customers.
But if you look at the bigger picture, you can see that everyone in an organization plays some part in fulfilling the customers’ needs.
Barely an hour goes by during the day when you are not, in some form or another, providing something for somebody.
Each interaction with an internal customer is an important link in a chain of events that always ends up at the external customers’ feet.
This means we must be extremely careful with the way we treat our colleagues at work irrespective of the relationship that exist between us.
About two years ago, The Wall Street Journal ran an article entitled, “Poorly treated employees treat the customer just as poorly.”
A frightening percentage of managers do not realize that their staffs are their internal customers, and that the quality of service that a company provides to its customers is a direct reflection of how the staffs of the organization are treated by their managers.
Make it a priority to view your staff as one of your most important customers and treat them accordingly.
Doing so means focusing not on what your staff can do to make your job easier, but on what you can do to make their jobs easier.
Many companies seem to overlook another very important link in the service chain and that is their vendors.
By using the techniques of customer service with your vendors, you will not only enhance your relationship with them but also receive better service
Customers, buyers and client want to pay a fair price for quality service products and feel satisfied they have paid or a service product and received what they have paid for in return.
They need someone to understand their needs, help them to answer questions and take care of them.
They need someone to hold their hands and walk them through a process.
Customer service start with the ability to listen to the customer and finding out through polite questioning what he/she needs or want.
Getting to know your client, his/her likes-dislikes ideas, and background is very important .
You need to do research on the customers habits and what they want and expect.
If not you can’t be successful in handling them.
Develop a customer friendly approach
Every time customers do business with you, they are, without fully realizing it, scoring you on how well you are doing, not only at giving them what they want, but at fulfilling six basic customer needs.
They are:
Friendliness: The most basic of all customer needs, friendliness is usually associated with being greeted politely and courteously. One key thing every customer except from organizations they do business with is friendliness. Customers expect every employee to be open and communicate with them in a friendly way. Greeting customers with a smile, introducing yourself as an employee and showing readiness to assist them are great attribute every customer expects.
Understanding and empathy: Customers need to feel that the person providing the service understands and appreciates their circumstances and feelings without criticism or judgment. Organizations that empathize with their customer’s situation always get the best from their customers. Firms should always find a reason to understand their customers and thank them for opening up to them. Empathy also goes with offering customers available options that the organization can help solve their problem.
Fairness: The need to be treated fairly is high up on most customers’ list of needs. The customer wants to feel they receive adequate attention and reasonable answers. A single unfair treatment from a company to it customer can lead the customer not to purchase from you again.
Options and alternatives: Customers need to feel that other avenues are available to getting what they want accomplished. Every customer want a variety and organizations that are able to provide their customers with different options being it their brand or services are likely to have a repeat purchase from their customer. Customers always have the feeling that the organizations they buy from can provide them with different services.
Control: Control represents the customers’ need to feel as if they have an impact or influence on the outcome. When an organization provides its customers with alternatives they should also allow them to take the final decisions whiles they guides them. Anytime a firm impose something on a customer there is a feeling that though they are paying for the product/service but they don’t have the absolute control of the final decisions.
Information: Customers need to be educated and informed about the products, policies, and procedures they encounter when dealing with your company.
One commodity among all organizations that provide good service is the development of a system and attitude promoting customer friendly service. By customer friendly we mean viewing the customer as the most important part of your job. The cliché the customer is always right is derived from this customer friendly environment.
However, two main task of successful customer relation are to communicate and develop relationships.
They don’t take a huge effort but don’t happen instantaneously either.
Positive dialogue/communication with your customers and developing ongoing relationships with your customers are perhaps the two important qualities to strive for customer service.
Good customer service means much more.
It means continued success, increased Profits, higher job satisfaction, improved organizations morale, better teamwork and market expansion of services and products.
Priscilla is a customer service trainer, banker, blogger and also enjoys writing about customer service. Priscilla helps small businesses and NGOs manage their customer service issues. Priscilla is passionate about empowering your team with skills to improve customer service, build client loyalty, enhance customer satisfaction, increase teamwork and manage more effectively.