Customer Excellence

 

 

I have been writing this Customer Excellence column for eight years and I am grateful to Glenn Baker and the team at NZBusiness for giving me the opportunity to share my thoughts on how to look after customers. 

 

I would like to say customer care has greatly improved over this time, but I cannot.  

My first column in June 2006 described an experience I had with a rental car company that erroneously cancelled my reservation because they could not be bothered calling to see why I had not collected my car. (They had the wrong date). Today my wife tells me that an account stuff-up we had with Smith & Caughey, which involved many telephone calls over several weeks, has still not been sorted out. 

 

In that first column, I suggested customers will not get a great experience unless staff cared about looking after them and I still believe that. Since then, I have repeatedly suggested one way to get staff to care is to make sure they understand who really pays their wages and just where your company’s profits come from. My theory is if you all understand who gives you the money you need to run your business, you will quickly realise you are actually in the customer business. As a result, you will make it about the customer, not about you or your products and services. Moreover, you will understand the best way to succeed is make your customers successful. 

I think about that every time I see ANZ’s ‘We live in your world’ adverts, especially the one where an architect is told he is spending too much time looking after his customers and not enough time worrying about his own success. Really? I would like someone from ANZ to explain to me how you become successful other than by looking after your customers.

 

As this is my last column, I’d like to leave you with my four essentials of great customer care, in the hope they will help you persuade your staff they are in the customer business. These four essentials are leadership, message credibility, staff ownership and peer involvement.

 

1. Staff are repeatedly told looking after customers well and providing them with an outstanding experience is a top priority. How often do you do that? The repetition of key messages is key to getting people to understand and remember. Just ask any coach or clergyman.

2. When it comes to looking after customers and creating a great customer experience, managers lead by example. Do you? People will pay more attention to what you do than what you say. If your staff watch you, what do they see?

3. When evaluating staff and doing performance reviews, managers emphasise the importance of customer care and creating a great customer experience. What do you focus on when evaluating the performance of your staff?

 

1. Messages about the importance of customer care and creating a great customer experience come from all senior people in the business. Who in your organisation preaches the message? Are you a lone wolf or do you have the active support of other senior people?

2. Messages about the importance of customer care and creating a great customer experience are consistent, constant and easy to understand. Are they? Tell them. Tell them again. And then repeat yourself.

 

1. Staff understand how customer care fits in with their job. Many staff see doing tasks such as preparing invoices and processing other paperwork as being the main part of their job. I think looking after customers is the main part of their job. What do you think?

2. Staff are empowered. How much authority do your staff have to offer something to a customer if things go wrong. I recommend they are able to give a gift or a refund of at least $75 without consulting you. 

3. Staff are comfortable pointing out policies, processes and directives that make it difficult for them to put the customer first. Do you encourage your staff to do this or are they too afraid to challenge the status quo?

 

1. Staff hold one another accountable for the way they look after their customers and for the customer experience they create. Do yours?

2. Staff routinely raise customer care issues and concerns at staff meetings. What is discussed at your staff meetings? How often is the word ‘customer’ used?

To those of you who have been regular readers, I say thank you. To those of you who have improved the way you look after your customers, I say well done. To those of you who still struggle, I say do not give up. 

To all of you, even those who still do not get it, I would like to leave you with this last thought: Treat your customers as if your future depends on it. Because it does!