Three things you can do to improve customer service

As I work with companies to help them improve their customer

service, some things stand out. These are things a lot of organizations

don’t do consistently. Yet if they did they’d find the quality of their

customer service would improve and their customer loyalty would

increase.

1. Know what your customers want.

The first thing is to make sure you really know what your customers

want. I know this sounds too basic to even talk about. But I’m

continually amazed at how many organizations make assumptions about

what their customers want without asking them.

An example

of this is when Magic Johnson opened a theater in partnership with

T.G.I. Friday’s. As they stocked up their food inventory they ordered

the usual number of hot dogs. This theater was in the city but the

manager was used to suburban theaters. Customers in the city were

different than suburban customers. As Magic explained, they didn’t go

to “dinner and a movie, they had dinner in the movie”. So

they bought more hot dogs than customers in suburban theaters did. The

manager thought he had enough hot dogs for one month. They all sold in

one night.

The theater manager thought he knew what his customers wanted. He made an assumption. He was wrong.

2. Get everyone involved.

Too often, management does not get enough people involved in finding

solutions and addressing opportunities. They think they have (or are

supposed to have) all the answers. Or they give lip service to

employees but they never really involve them in any process of

improvement.

Shari Ballard, a top executive with Best Buy talks about this. She calls it “making the math work”.

Her example is Best Buy itself. They have 4,000 people at their

corporate headquarters. They could rely on just these people to find

solutions and opportunities. But they don’t. Because they also have

140,000 other people throughout their company. And these people are

closer to their customers. By getting these people involved they

increase their success ratio. They know they’ll have more answers, more

ideas, more opportunities and more solutions.

3. Help your customers accomplish what they want.

Like #1 above, this seems too simple to even mention. But as

customers, we see companies breaking this rule every day. This happens

when we focus on selling rather than helping. It happens when we make

suggestions before knowing what our customers want. It happens when we

push products or services on customers because of our quotas or

commissions.

Any time employees are focused on selling products or services

because management tells them to, they are NOT focused on helping their

customers. You help your customers by learning what they want to

accomplish and then fitting your offering to their situation.

Anything else is self-serving. While there is nothing inherently

wrong with being self-serving, don’t expect it to create loyal

customers. It won’t. If your customers know you will always focus on

your needs then they will treat you accordingly. You will not be a high

priority for them because they are not a high priority for you.

But if they know you will always do right by them, they will treat

you like someone they can trust. And they’ll come back more often.

Ask yourself how well you do these three things now. Is there room for improvement? If so, what might your first step be?