How's Your Customer Service?

NOTE: All material provided in this editorial is based upon education I received in the course of my work as an employee/manager with each of the chains indicated. These are things that are routinely taught during the training cycle for each. Customer service (also known as Client Service) is the provision of service to customers before, during and after a purchase. It encompasses activities designed to enhance the level of customer satisfaction - that is, the belief that a product or service has met the customer's expectations. Businesses today realize that it costs far less to retain existing customers while adding others than it does to focus solely on bringing in customers for the first time. The provision of customer service is designed to engender customer loyalty to the company providing the product or service. The degree of customer service provided may vary depending on the particular product, service, industry, and customer. Then there is the matter of whether the customer himself is an expert in the subject matter or comparatively unlearned. So far, so good. However, in all too many instances, personnel from the top down take the stance that customer service is the responsibility of specific personnel or a specific department (customer service representative, customer service desk, customer service tab on-line, receptionist, etc.). In those organizations that clearly stand out from the crowd, there is the realization that everyone, from president/CEO to the custodian, is to some extend responsible for customer service. In other words, everyone who at any point in time has direct or indirect contact with current or potential customers is a representative of the company and has customer service responsibility. By the same token, any one of the personnel of a company can easily "blow it" for the organization, costing it not only the customer directly effected, but potential customers that first customer knows or meets. Allow me to cite a few examples:

At CiCi's Pizza, managers and staff are coached heavily that the "WOW" principle is the rule. This principle states that if the customer leaves the restaurant without saying to himself "WOW!," then to some extent the restaurant has failed him. How do their people achieve that goal? Certainly, they are radical in the areas of quality of product, quality of service, and cleanliness of the store. Staff are held to high appearance standards. The managers are given a checklist, and during the course of each hour the store is open the checklist must be followed from the front of the store to the back. Managers are told that a good day includes leaving the store in a perspiration-soaked shirt. Employees are trained that whenever anyone enters the store, everyone possible is to shout out "Welcome to CiCi's!" Further, the instruction is to go completely out of the way to satisfy the customer. When I was in training at Cici's University in Dallas, Texas, I worked in the largest store in the city. One day a regular customer had finished his meal and was getting ready to eat some dessert pizza. I walked over and asked how the meal went for him. "Everything was great. But you know? This dessert pizza would taste a lot better with a cup of coffee." CiCi's does not serve coffee. I immediately had another member of management cover for me, drove a couple of blocks away to a store that sold quality coffee, and purchased a decent-sized cup with all the side "goodies." You can imagine the reaction when I set the coffee and all before that customer AT NO CHARGE that trip. Did it cost a little money? Certainly. Is it something he would expect again? Not really. Is he likely to return and make many future purchases while recommending CiCi's to his friends and acquaintances? You bet! When Sam Walton was alive, Wal-Mart had a firm policy that every employee who came within ten feet of a customer was to smile, say hello and ask if he or she could be of service. Failure to do so was grounds for negative action, to and including immediate dismissal. Sam taught that the customer could fire everyone from the top down just by taking his business elsewhere. He himself often checked out the compliance, entering stores in his trademark coveralls and looking like a cleaned-up farmer. The stores at that time took pretty much anything back without a lot of hassle. In the Wal-Mart museum in Bentonville are some items Sam himself took for exchange or refund that Wal-Mart did not even sell!

At Taco Bell, cashiers are empowered to make certain adjustments for customer satisfaction, such as replacing an item or an entire order if necessary. Everyone is expected to listen to a complaint without critiquing, apologize for the inconvenience, ask the customer what it would take to make him satisfied with the store, and thank him for his continued business. The stores maintain a complaint book, and a customer is required only to have his receipt, to have called in the complaint within a reasonable time following his visit to the store, or if the food was defective to produce the food item itself. If a customer recognizes you on the street and relates a bad experience with your organization, listen closely. He is not likely to say "that store/company." No, he is more likely to say "your store/company." He associates you with the organization, so you have a personal stake in everything being the best it possibly can be.

So let me ask the title question: How's YOUR customer service?