Customer Service - The Bedrock of the Global Economy

When a country is experiencing an era of prosperity we so often see the level of customer service slipping greatly. People who work in retail, especially those who are on commission, often feel that they can let their customer service skills slide because there’s always another buyer right around the corner, and for many years, most countries have experienced prosperity. Nowadays, looking at the global economy, it’s patently clear that the economy is in deep trouble, customer service has hit a new low, and if we don’t change our attitudes about work and service, more businesses will be forced to close and more people will lose their jobs and be out of work.

You cannot separate customer service from the bottom line. With so many people competing for business, the only ones who will survive this economic downturn will be those who know how to give excellent service.

Studies show that a typical dissatisfied customer will tell 6-10 people about the problem. A typical satisfied customer will tell 1-2 people. It costs 6x more to attract a new customer than it does to keep an old one. Of those customers who stop doing business with you 68% do so because of an attitude of indifference by the company or a specific individual. About 7-10 complaining customers will do business with you again if you resolve the complaint in their favour. If you resolve a complaint on the spot, 95% of your customers will do business with you again.

How can you afford to ignore these statistics? As a business owner you stand to lose a lot of money and perhaps even your business if you ignore these statistics. As an employee you stand to lose your job if you don’t pay attention to your customer’s needs.

In the old days, people were expected to do their job and to do it well. And if they didn’t, they were fired. Today, we’re living in litigious times. Due to the recent spate of lawsuits, companies are afraid to fire people for fear of being taken to court. So now they are stuck with employees who don’t really care about the company, who are poorly trained, and whose attitude of indifference gives customer service a bad name. This has contributed greatly to the failing economy.

Good customer service is so rare that nowadays we find ourselves praising company employees profusely just for doing their job. In other words, we are getting accustomed to employees who are not properly trained, who have no job skills, who cannot think their way out of a paper bag and who are absolutely indifferent to their customer’s needs – and we wonder why the economy is in such bad shape.

Look at the culture we have accepted as our norm. It’s pitiful. It’s disgraceful. When you buy an expensive item, you probably want something that works, a company that stands behind its warranty and a salesperson who can tell you something about the product and be reasonably correct in the information they are disseminating.
And if that’s the case, why wouldn’t you give that same level of service to your customers?

We’ve already seen how manufacturers use the concept of planned obsolescence. If your washing machine has a warranty of 3 years - we can almost be sure that it’s going to be ready for the rubbish heap in 3 years and 1 week. There was a time when a washing machine would last for ever and a day, and if you needed service, the store would send someone who was reliable and knowledgeable and capable of fixing that machine.

Customer service is the bedrock of any business whether you provide a service or a product. If you are diligent about keeping appointments, being on top of follow-ups, correcting problems immediately and having a cheerful, cooperative attitude, you can’t help but be successful, no matter what the economy.

During the Great depression of 1929, with 23% of the population unemployed and standing on bread lines in the US, there were still enterprising people who opened businesses or continued businesses that had been in operation and who made a great deal of money.
People who were willing to work hard and go above and beyond what was expected of them. People who persevered, who did not give up hope, but who forged ahead in spite of every hardship they encountered.

I worry about people being unprepared emotionally and financially for the hard times yet to come.
Of all the things that we can do to turn this economy around, good customer service seems the easiest in theory. What could be easier than having one of your employees greet people at the door with a smile and welcoming them to the store and asking how they can help them? Yet more often than not, a potential customer walks into a store, no one says hello to them, no one asks them if they need help, no one is anxious to handle their complaints and no one seems anxious to get their business.

Several years ago, I heard of a store manager of a high end department store who had a customer who had just bought an expensive outfit from the store and she had no shoes to go with it. The store manager sent her 32 pairs of shoes delivered to her home the next day and told her to take what she needed and send the rest back. I am sure that that customer will do business with that store for the rest of her life – and that store manager will not only have gained the most loyal customer and all her family and friends but he will have increased the store’s profitability just by that one act.

Great customer service doesn’t only extend to external customers, but it extends to internal customers as well – namely, the employees. The companies that stay operational through the tough times are most likely to be the companies that take good care of their employees. The common reaction with a downturn economy is to try to pare down your costs – but the unwise employer often pares down the very things that motivate employees to be loyal and to take good care of their customers.

I know of a company in the US that scouted around for really qualified employees shortly after the economy came tumbling down. The CEO said that those he hired during this time were the cream of the crop, they were out of work because their companies had downsized, and they would be very loyal for having been hired during these tough times. He knew he was going to have to put a great deal of money into the training but his rationale was that when things are slow this is the best time to do these trainings. When business is brisk there is no time to do a really good job. So his people are well trained and he is doing great business and it’s doubtful that even if the economy goes through the roof, these people will be looking elsewhere for a better job. `

There’s a luggage company in the US that stands behind their products 100%. If a piece of their luggage ever gets damaged beyond repair, they replace it free of charge.
A man had an attaché case and he put it on the kichen counter too near a pot that was cooking on the stove. The attaché case caught fire and was badly damaged. He called the company, and told them what happened. He said: I know this is my fault, I did a stupid thing- I put the attaché case too close to the pan that was on the stove… they said “ we’ll send out a new one in tomorrow’s mail. He said “no, I’m not looking for a new one, this was my fault, I just want to know how much it will cost to repair it. They said – your attaché case is fully warrantied for any kind of damage and we’ll send you out a new one in tomorrow’s mail – which they did.

This is a customer who will never buy luggage from another company. Instead of telling 1-2 people about how satisfied he was, he told everyone he could think of about the company. This man singlehandedly caused that company’s new sales to skyrocket.

He told friends and neighbours and relatives about this company – and one of those people told a friend of mine who bought all her luggage from them too – and as a result I bought all my luggage from them as well. That’s the correlation between great customer service and the economy.

So an attaché case that cost $300 - $500 probably netted the company $1/2M in new sales.

I have never seen so many businesses with so few people at the helm who understood the meaning of business. I find it incredible that in this downturn economy, businesses are not rushing to do business with you, instead they are turning it away in droves. For the past couple of months, I have been looking to rent office space for classes on a weekly basis. I need a year’s lease and nobody wants to give it to me. The most the anyone has offered has been for two months and for the stupidest of reasons that are underscored by their inability to understand economics and how their business can survive this downturn economy.

Let me give you some examples of what I’m talking about.

I went to one place and asked for a year’s lease and she said that couldn’t be done, because once a month they hold a board meeting in that room (and by the way there’s only one room that will accommodate a large enough space for classes) – and she said that first they have dinner and then they have their board meeting. So I asked her if they couldn’t have their board meeting on another night. She said, no – that’s the night we’ve been having the meeting for many years. I asked he how many people came to these board meetings – she said there are 12 of them. So I thought to myself this makes absolutely no sense. This room is supposed to generate an income and yet, business is being turned away because these 12 people would be inconvenienced by having their meeting on another night.

If I owned that building, and these were my board members, you can be sure that if they wanted to have their meeting on that night and they wanted to have dinner, I would host the meeting in my house, order in pizza and have the meeting at my place for just 12 people.

Another building had a perfectly lovely room and they would only give me 2 months – because just in case they needed it for other events that may want to come in during the year. There’s an old saying: a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush” – they turned down a year’s lease that was guaranteed income for them, just in case, in the downturn economy, someone else wanted to use the room for a different event.

Then I went to a school with the same request for a year’s lease and they turned it down simply because twice a year they give exams to their students and they needed that room for their exams. With the economy being the way it is, and the exams being given just twice a year, you would think that even if they had to give those exams on a Saturday, they would have had the business sense to give me a year’s lease. Again, a guaranteed income for them.

Let me give you another example of really poor customer service. I bought a highly specialised software programme and there’s only one technician in my entire community who is licensed to do repairs, upgrades and tutorials. His fees are much higher than anyone else’s. He doesn’t get back to you when he promises. He only gets back to you when he knows he’s going to make some more money from you.

Up to this point, he’s been riding high. In his mind, he thinks that he will continue to thrive – what he doesn’t realise is that with so many people wanting our money, if he continues with such poor customer service – people like me will throw up our hands in disgust and buy a different software programme from someone else. And this deplorable level of customer service doesn’t only hold true in my country, but in a neighbouring country as well. I am trying to buy a $500 programme and they haven’t returned my telephone calls. And the sad part about all of this is that when their business fails and they have no income, they won’t even realise that they were the ones who caused their own downfall.

The heart of an economy is based on the numbers of employed people. A country cannot survive without people buying goods. If you are out of work, you cannot afford to buy anything. If you can’t afford to buy anything, the economy crashes. So it makes sense to look at why people need to hone up on their customer service skills as a way of generating new business and retaining existing business.

Everything that we do or fail to do has a direct correlation to our income and by extension to the economy of our country and the economy of the world.

To sum up:
1. If you are the boss, examine the things you can do to generate business
2. Don’t let convenience or habit stand in the way of taking advantage of a good business opportunity.
3. If your business involves performing a service, make sure you give 100% of yourself to your customers.
4. Be on time for your appointments
5. Return phone calls promptly
6. Make sure you follow through with all your commitments
7. At the end of the service you are providing, ask your customer if they are satisfied with the level of service they have received and don’t be offended if you have to hear criticism. Take it to heart and try to do better for the next customer
8. Be courteous, be cheerful, be helpful, be knowledgeable. If you don’t know the answer, or cannot perform the service, admit it. Don’t be afraid to refer that person to someone else who may be able to help, because that customer will probably come back to you in the future, just for your honesty.