This morning my blog reader listed several posts about customer service. This morning my blog reader listed several posts about customer service. Seth Godin offers three reasons why customer service is broken and how to fix it. And he pointed me to Joel Spolsky’s article “Seven steps to remarkable customer service,” where step #4 is “Take the blame.” I think that’s one of the hardest things for many of us to do. Perhaps rephrasing it to “take responsibility” might make it a little easier.
When presented with a tough customer service situation, I ask myself, “What will be of greater benefit to me… being right or keeping a customer?” The answer is always the latter. It’s easier and less expensive to keep an existing customer than to find a new one. And an unhappy ex-customer can be extremely costly. In fact, the customer who is happy with how you solved a problem will often be one of your best word-of-mouth referrers.
The old adage, “the customer is always right” seems unpopular these days. I think many of us suffer from an over-inflated sense of entitlement…. companies who believe they’re just entitled to customers no matter how they’re treated and customers who believe that they’re entitled to profit from company errors.
A little appreciation, a willingness to accept responsibility even when it’s may not be clear that it’s our “fault”, and an attitude check by everyone concerned goes a long way towards a fair and equitable solution for everyone involved.
Customer service is where the small home business can thrive. We can’t compete with the super stores on pricing or variety, but we can certainly provide personal, careful attention and respect.
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