How to Greatly Improve Your Customer Service

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Interview with leading customer satisfaction expert Dr. Jack West, past president of the American Society for Quality

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Joel: What does car manufacturing have to do with customer service? We’ll find out later in this webcast. Hi, I’m Joel and welcome to the AllBusiness webcast on customer service, the good, the bad, and the basics. We’re going to be covering a lot of ground on this webcast so let’s get started.

That’s too much ground. Let’s back up. Let’s start at the beginning. Have you ever wondered what the experts themselves think about the different aspects of customer service? Let’s listen to Jack West, former president of the American Association of Quality and one of the foremost experts on customer service, talk about the key determinants.

Jack: The first one is perceived quality. The second one is value, and the third is reliability. So quality is the principal determinant of customer satisfaction, and there what we’re doing is comparing someone’s experience with the product or service that they have bought to their expectation before they bought the product or service. So these are the most important ones that we’ve seen and quality tends to dominate in terms of the customer’s experience, not price, not reliability but quality.

Joel: That sounds about right. And what does Jack West say is the number one thing businesses can do to improve the customer service, in a word? Empathy.

Jack: I would have all customer service personnel exhibit a little bit more empathy. We can typically tolerate some kinds of issues in our lives if we believe that the other person is walking at least somewhat in our shoes. And the classic case of that all summer long has been the airline industry. You hear complaints all the time about people having to wait and not being told why. Well, if people were told why and there’s a little bit of empathy, they’re typically much more satisfied than just they’re stonewalled and I think that is one quick and easy fix that small businesses could make which could dramatically improve their customer satisfaction.

Joel: Now it’s time to get back to that list of ten. Hold on a second, that’s a little too fast. Know your customers, try to learn everything you can about your customers in order to tailor your service approach to their needs and buying habits.

Jack: One of the original places that quality functions appointment was used, I think that we can all relate to, was in the design of the Ford Taurus automobile. And one of the things that when they started talking to their customers, they heard things about cup holders and about easy access to loading groceries in the trunk and that led to some very interesting kind of designs in the Taurus automobile that now you can see in virtually any car. But that’s what caused Taurus automobile to be the best-selling car in the United States for about ten years was taking subjective customer expectations and quantifying those and translating those into actual product features.

Joel: Now roll the other list and do it slowly. Trying to win the argument. It’s worth remembering that it takes five times more in cost and in effort to gain one new customer as it takes to maintain one current customer. Therefore, to win an argument and lose a customer, you’re punishing your business so how do you handle an angry customer? Well, we asked AllBusiness adviser Jim Logan. Roll the video.

Jim: The reality of business is that if you’re in business long enough, you’re going to have to deal with an upset customer. It’s inevitable. When that happens, I found there’s three things you can do to not only handle the upset customer but turn into a positive event that strengthens your relationship. The first thing is to listen. There’s nothing worse than being upset and thinking that no one’s listening to you so be sure and listen and let your customer vent, understand what the real issue is that they’re upset about. The second thing to do is don’t make any foolish promises that you somehow won’t be able to keep. What this means is they’re already upset so don’t add any fuel to the fire by offering something that you know you won’t be able to live up to. The third thing is, is be sure and actually make a promise or commitment that you can, this takes you a long way towards rebuilding trust and confidence from your customer.

Joel: Thanks for listening. We hope you found these tips on customer service useful.


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