Since reading Dr. Escoe's last blog highlighting customer focus, it seems as though our customer service antennae have been buzzing. We have looked within our own organization and made observations while out in public. I recently had a disappointing customer service experience at a local coffee spot. The cashier did not smile when I approached the counter nor throughout the entire transaction. This cashier did not say "hello" or "thank you" and did not ask me if I wanted a receipt (I was at a business meeting). In starting out the business meeting, I began to share the experience with my colleague and we must have spent 45 minutes on this topic discussing mainly our recent poor examples and some positive ones. I know we must all have these experiences to share. So, without naming specific companies or people, we would love to start a discussion via this blog on the topic of customer focus. Please share your stories and thoughts below including the good, the bad and the ugly and what you would do differently, what your learned from it, or how your organization maintains customer focus.
Looking forward to the discussion!
The trick here is what the standards are for 'good' customer service. As business owners, our challenge is to train our employees to respond to each customer based on the first few interactions. Your opinion on the experience might be different if you're distracted, or on the phone, or having a bad day. Are we training our front staff to have this sensibility?
ReplyDeleteWelcome to the real world ! Under paid and over worked! Not eveybody is cut out for customer service. A Person comes to work maybee they got a ticket or in a fight with there boyfriend or girlfriend right before they came to work? People are people . I dont think there worried about you thinking Gee that girl or guy at the counter didn't smile at me !
ReplyDeleteThank you anonymous for your comment. We can appreciate your thoughts and understand that we are all people and are not perfect. With that said, this is why we wrote these blogs and examples on customer interaction. Especially in today's economy the internal and external customer experiences are what can make or break a business. We all have a choice or where we shop and work. For example, I could have gone to another coffee location for my business meeting but chose to go to that location and brand, not because of the coffee, but because of the customer service experience that the company is known for. In addition, as a customer you are not only paying for the product but for the experience. We hope this helps further explain our reasoning for this blog series.
ReplyDeleteAgreed. More importantly, this applies on the global scale as well. No only in tourism but in B2B, entire states and countries are made on the basis of good customer service. Have you heard of companies leaving California? ---- Boil it down to being customer friendly. How about skilled workers leaving the US? ---- same thing.
ReplyDeleteCustomer service cannot be emphasized enough in this global economy. Having a "buy here, if you're lucky" attitude is to start down the road to bankruptcy.