Customer Service: Find a way to say ‘Yes’
I was just reading a book today and came across a very important reminder of customer service, and it really brought to me perspective to what I am doing in my business and how to treat customers. It also really made me think about how big companies treat customers and that has a lot to do about their reputation.
I have always prescribed to the notion that the customer is always right, I know it has been recently argued by some people that this isn’t right, but to me you really just need to have that mindset in business no matter what. More than anything it’s not so much about the telling the employees of the company that the customer is always right; it’s engraining a culture of doing this.
Within this book there was an interesting story about the author buying a round the world first class ticket and in one leg of the journey the lady at the first class lounge wouldn’t let him in because the leg that was coming up only had a business class option and therefore wasn’t technically flying first class.
Think about that, a guy that has bought a $20,000 ticket with the one airline, doing multiple legs with that one airline in first class and just because one leg of that journey wasn’t first class (because they didn’t have a first class section) he wasn’t allowed into the lounge. I know, I know, who cares about the poor rich man! But that’s not the point; the company should be doing anything possible to please this guy, it’s purely a case of a poorly engrained culture within the company as well as a black and white thinking employee.
On the flip side, there is also a story about a clothing store that had a really well engrained culture of saying yes to customers, to the point that they rewarded employees who had the best stories of delivering above and beyond customer service. One day a lady came in to the clothing store, to return some defective tires (that’s right defective tires!), of course the company didn’t sell tire because they were a clothing store. The shop attendant told the customer this but the lady insisted she bought the tires there. So the shop attendant gave the customer a full refund on the tires they don’t stock! A couple of days later the lady realised the error of her ways, apologised for the company and went to the media with her story. They got mountains of publicity!
This is an example of incredible customer service, although it might seem stupid initially to give the customer a refund on products they don’t sell, the end result was enormous exposure for this business. Although you might not get massive exposure for everything you do in your business, the point is that developing that sort of culture is going to produce extremely happy customers and a can do attitude amongst your staff.
What company do you want yours to be? The Airline or the Clothing Store?
Check out my 7 step sales system if you want some more tips on the sales process.
