I
recently visited a food establishment and while making a purchase at the cashier
burned my hand on a heated keg near the cash register. The burn was mild but I was in complete shock
that any company would keep such a hazardous piece of equipment in the way of
customers. Even more shocking however, was the insensitive response of the
cashier - "sorry about that, but there's
a sign you know? It's right there", she said, pointing to the sign
"HOT....." which was taped onto the keg, at waist level, which
explains why I didn't see it in the first place. Because she shrugged off my ensuing lecture
on risk management, the duty of care owed to children in particular and the
right of consumers to a safe environment, I decided to broadcast my concerns to
the company on twitter.
There are two important things that
every small business should master - delivering
great customer service and managing customer complaints. In fact for Jamaica especially,
one of the most effective ways for small
businesses and start-ups to create a competitive advantage is to offer great
customer service consistently. This is
because great customer service is not the standard to which we are accustomed, so
companies that offer it provide a refreshing change that their customers will
embrace, appreciate and talk about to others. Such positive word of mouth is essential in
brand building and boosting
sales as evidenced in a recent Neilson study which outlined that 90% of online
consumers worldwide trust recommendations from people they know and 70% trust
consumer opinions posted online.
There's
also substantial evidence that great customer service can increase a company's
bottom line in a recession. Even in a negative
economy, customer experience is a high priority for consumers, with 60% of
persons choosing to pay more for a better experience, that's according to the Customer
Experience Impact Report 2011 produced by Harris Interactive, a respected
US based research company. The same report noted that 86% of US
consumers stop doing business with a company because of a bad customer
experience, up from 59% in 2007.
When
delivered effectively, excellent customer service should come across as seamless and genuine. However it takes proper planning, commitment
and dedicated resources to be able to deliver such service. Here are some key
ingredients for great customer service that small businesses and start-ups can note:
1. Establish the right company values which
clearly put customers first
2. Define, understand and create a service excellence culture which requires
leading by example
3. Ensure you have the appropriate
infrastructure to deliver exceptional customer experience, including the right physical
layout and optimal process flow
4. Hire the right people
5. Continuous training & development, and good
compensation of staff
6. Documented policies, processes &
procedures
7. Consistent monitoring, measuring and
evaluation of your service
Welcoming,
capturing and properly analyzing customer feedback is necessary at all steps of
customer engagement. Possibly the most important feedback you'll ever receive
is when you've just started a business or just launched a new product or
service. It is at this time, when you've not completely worked out the kinks
that you should try to capture as much feedback from your customers as possible
and use it to help improve your services and operations.
Treating
complaints as gifts
Effectively
managing complaints is one of the most essential components of the customer
service process. I would hope that by now the company I mentioned earlier has realized
that my complaint was a big gift. First I alerted them to a problem they
probably did not know existed, giving them an opportunity to fix it before another
customer is injured and potentially preventing financial loss to the company
from legal action for negligence. Second, I gave them the opportunity to
apologize, win me over and keep me as a customer. Most unhappy customers do not complain, but
rather stop doing business with the company and warn off family and friends.
With the advent of social media angry customers have the ability to reach
hundreds if not thousands of people with the click of a button. Small
businesses should therefore avoid the trap that many companies in Jamaica have
fallen into in viewing and treating complaints as negative. It's important to
note that it will cost a company 5 times as much to
attract a new customer as it will to keep an existing one. I was pleasantly surprised at the quick
response of the company to my tweet. They appeared genuinely apologetic, and
also said they would see if the keg that burned me could be moved to avoid such
incidents in the future. However, a company with a more robust customer
experience policy would have probably offered something tangible, such as a gift
certificate or discount on future purchase.
As published in The Sunday Gleaner dated July 14, 2013.
One love!
Yaneek Page is an
entrepreneur and trainer in entrepreneurship & workforce innovation. Email:
yaneek.page@gmail.com, Twitter: @yaneekpage , Website: www.theinnovatorsbootcamp.com
