By Chitralekha Chakraborty
The world is full of slogans, seminars and books that focus on customer service. We understand that excellent customer service increases customer loyalty, which in turn boosts profitability and drives growth. Then why is customer service so often still so poor? It’s a question of moving from attitude to action. This introductory note stresses some hard facts which probe why customer service is still mediocre at best in so many organizations.
What was your latest customer service mantra?
– “The customer is always right.”
– “The customer comes first.”
– “This is the year of the customer.”
Have you had a recent customer appreciation week, given all employees lapel buttons stating “Yes, I can” to reflect their empowered attitude? Most organizations have involved their employees in a slogan or a customer service seminar. Everyone in management has bought and perhaps read the latest books on service. Most of those books, slogans and seminars seem to create the right attitude, yet no meaningful action follows. Words, including these in this piece, don’t create improvements. Informed action does.
The best people and companies know this. They have come to understand the links, connecting excellent customer service, customer loyalty, organizational growth and profitability. They know that the key to their long-term success is changing the organization’s culture to one that prizes customer loyalty.
Although it’s true that service by itself does not guarantee loyalty, without it you greatly reduce your chances of retaining customers — the basis for building and sustaining growth and prosperity of organizations.
In the United States I see three levels of service being delivered. Those three are rude, indifferent and exceptional. Of these three, which do you mostly receive? “Indifferent” gets my vote.
Here’s one of my recent encounters with indifference. While I was renting a car, the customer service agent folded the rental contract, told me how to find my car and in which space, and then said “Thank you, Ms. Ford?” The misstatement indicated robotic, indifferent service. It also told me that this company does not have a culture that values me (and perhaps you) as its customer.
Most organizations are great in processing customers. Very few excel at serving and satisfying customers. We get processed all the time. Go to the bank and make a deposit. In most cases you get exactly what you expect — a correct receipt for your deposit and the amount of money you requested. Had anything occurred to leave you with a positive impression of the bank that would keep you loyal? It may be most unlikely . Perhaps your teller did not acknowledge you by name or thank you. May be the employees talked among themselves.
Exceptional service and satisfaction are required to create loyal customers. The process of being served is what’s memorable. That personalized transaction is the key to customer retention.
Customer service is not enough. Customer satisfaction that leads to loyalty is the goal. “Loyalty” means you retain a customer and increase the business you do with that customer, developing a relationship so this customer will not be lured away to the competition with the promise of a lower price.
Almost everyone knows the research and statistics, a few take the numbers to heart. Research done some years ago tells us it costs five or six times more to attract a new customer than to keep a current one. Experts estimate the cost today as being closer to eight to ten times. Bain & Company reports that if a company retains 5% of its current customer base, its profits will increase between 25% and 125%! Have you noticed how many companies spend their time, money and energy to attract new customers, while doing very little to keep their current customers? Although it’s a fairly common practice, it’s very short-sighted.
Here’s a scenario that has probably happened with you last year. Let’s say it’s 7 o’clock in the evening and you have just sat down to dinner. The telephone rings. You answer and discover it’s just one of the long-distance telephone carriers offering a great deal with plenty of incentives to entice you to become a new customer. You stop the representative and say “Time out! You already are my long-distance carrier.” The rep responds “Oops!!” Then you asked “Well, can I have that deal as an existing customer?” And the answer is “No”. The offer is only for a new customer, and not for you, an established customer.
It’s amazing how few organizations have figured out that marketing to current customers is good business. What about your organization? Does it work as hard to build the loyalty and business of current customers as it does to attract new ones? Write your experiences as a customer or rep — help me to reach closer to customer service in depth.
This entry was posted on Wednesday, May 14th, 2008 at 12:10 am and is filed under Business Tips, Small Business, Uncategorized, Woman Entrepreneur, customer service. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
