WILL SOMEONE PLEASE HELP ME?
For those of you that know me or have read my books know that I spend quite a bit of time talking about customer service vs. customer satisfaction. For those of you not familiar, I define customer service as a concept whereas customer satisfaction is a demonstration.
Almost every company I know in and out of our industry has a customer service department or customer representative. But, so many companies fall short when it comes to providing real customer satisfaction---in other words, demonstrating to make sure the customer is really happy.
I want to relay an experience I had just this past week when attempting to order something on line. It epitomizes the difference between the two. I placed my order and was told via email that they needed additional information. Okay, I will provide that information. I was told via another email that the new information was incorrect. I made another attempt to provide the information the CUSTOMER SERVICE REPRESENTATIVE wanted. Still not correct and this time an email that was quite explicit telling me how inept I was at completing their forms.
Let me shorten the story. After 11 emails from them and 10 in reply from me I couldn't contain myself. I had to do something that seems to be out of style in today's world---I picked up the phone and called their customer service department and asked to speak to someone other than the person I had been caring on a dialogue with via email.
I got a very nice person and resolved the issue within 5 minutes. Now, here is the real kicker...The information I had given on my second email with was the correct information they needed. Amazing how easy issues can be resolved talking instead of emailing or texting.
You are probably thinking why in the world did he communicate with 11 emails? Answer: I wanted to see just how long it was going to take. When I couldn't take it any longer I gave up on my experiment and called the company.
So, let me ask. How is you company doing on the customer satisfaction front? Do you have a customer service department or do you have a customer satisfaction department? So many companies will spend so much time proving that the customer is wrong when it really doesn't matter who is wrong---THE CUSTOMER IS THE CUSTOMER and deserves to be satisfied. Proving you were right only loses customers.
Arby's has a great system for customer satisfaction. They call it the BLAST system,
B--Believe what the customer tells you.
L--Listen to the customer.
A--Apologize for any inconvenience.
S--Satisfy the customer.
T--Thank the customer for their business.
Great system isn't it?
As a reminder, we have a Customer Relations training DVD in English and Spanish that focuses on this issue. You can order it at www.consultantsincleaning.com.
Till next time and MAKE IT A GREAT DAY.
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