The State of Customer Service in this Country

My personal opinion about customer service in this country is that it has been going downhill for years.   This past weekend was no exception.  My husband I decided to take our kids to the movie theatre.  We very rarely go to the theatre since it’s a little pricey for all 5 of us to go regularly.  Anyhow, I was flabbergasted at the complete lack of service, in fact lack of respect for the customers.  With this kind of service, I don’t plan on going back anytime soon.  In fact, According to American Express, 85% of customers have decided to never do business with a company because of poor customer service in the past.  That’s a lot of people!! 

Now of course when you go anywhere on a weekend, it’s going to be busy and you’re going to encounter teenage sales associates.  I get that.  After all, I was a manager for 10 years and some of my best employees were my students.  However, when we got to the movie theatre, there was line up a mile long.  We got in line, but the line didn’t seem to be moving very quickly.  After standing there for a very long time, the line suddenly split off.  I guess they had decided to open another cash window.  Maybe it’s just me, but really… on a weekend matinee with 5 movies playing that everyone wants to see, you’re only going to open one cash window with a slow moving teenager??  By the time we got to the cash, the teenager did not even look at us, he just told us the total and that was it.  No apology for the wait, no “Thank you for coming”, no acknowledgement what so ever.  Next we headed to the lineup for the popcorn.  Once again we stood there forever.  Once we got to the front, the teenager working this cash was taking his sweet old time, oblivious to the fact that there were 50 people still standing behind me.  Once again, no acknowledgement what so ever.  He just took our order, proceeded to have a conversation with another teenager working the counter, took my money and that was it. 

Now I’m not bashing teenagers (I have a 15 year old son), but what is with the level of customer service lately?  I’m not blaming the teenagers.  After all it’s likely their first job, so they have never had any training on how to be courteous.  (Don’t get me wrong, some of that is common sense and should have been instilled in them at home by now)  When I was a manager, the absolute number one priority in my store was customer service.  The stores I managed were number one in the district and the company for a reason… because we had repeat customers who wouldn’t think to shop anywhere else.

So, how have things changed in terms of customer service training?  Do you have a thorough training plan in place?  Do you have high expectations for your staff (teenagers or not)?  Remember, 85% of your customers won’t come back because of poor service.  Taking the time to adequately train your staff, follow up regularly with them and instill a sense of pride to be working for your company is well worth the time it takes to do that.  Remember that customer retention is so much easier and cheaper than customer acquisition. 

What's in it for me?

As I said in my previous blog, listening to your customers is an extremely important step to customer retention, but there is no way you’re going to remember everything about every customer especially what they’ve all purchased, how often and how much they spend.  That’s why having an accurate, detailed database is vital.  But, database marketing only works to build retention if the customer benefits from the retention strategies.  Which means that you can have all the information possible about your customer but if your marketing retention strategy doesn’t interest them, there’s no point in doing it.  So, really pay very close attention to the information you have and strategically design your marketing strategies from the customer’s point of view. 

So, what kinds of strategies work?  Well, that depends on your industry and your clients’ preferences, but here are some commonly used things that work well.

·         Membership cards

·         Welcome and thank you communications

·         Satisfaction surveys

·         Enhanced technical support with follow up satisfaction calls

·         Frequent Buyer Programs

Most importantly, as I’ve said before, listen to what the customers want.  Do they want free stuff?  A Frequent Buyer Program might be a great option.  Do they want to share their input on your products, services and company?  Having their voices heard might mean they’d take the time to complete a satisfaction survey.  But, get creative.  Personally, I use a referral program.  When one of my clients refers another client to me, the referring client gets 15% off their next purchase.  As most of my clients are owners of very small businesses, they are more than happy to save some money on professional services.

The key to customer retention is to ensure that you have developed a very comprehensive Integrated Marketing Communications plan aimed specifically at your existing customers, designed to build loyalty.  Have fun with it.  Get creative.  Better yet, ask your customers what they want and give them exactly that.

LISTEN! PLEASE JUST LISTEN!!

Customer retention is so much cheaper and easier that customer acquisition.  But I see it time and time again, where small business owners work their butts off to try and get customers to come to their place of business and buy their products, but fail to build a relationship with their customers.  As a marketer, I know how absolutely vital it is to generate awareness of a company.  But, where advertising creates an image for your company, your relationship building skills (or unfortunately as we’ve all seen, lack thereof) solidifies that image in the eyes of the consumer.

Your primary focus is to listen to your customers.  You’ve gotten them interested enough to come to your store/office/etc.  Now ask questions and really (I mean REALLY) listen to what they have to say. 

So, what questions do I ask?  Don’t get so wrapped up in a conversation about your business and what you can do for your customer.  Your goal is to dig a little deeper, find out stuff about the person.  People like to talk about themselves and the things they tell you can be incredibly enlightening.  You can learn so much from your customers.  And by taking the time to listen to them, you are creating an atmosphere of trust.  That trust goes a long way in developing a long-term relationship with your customers. 

Years ago, when I was a manager of cellular phone store, I had a gentleman come into my store to find out some stuff about phones.  He was an older guy, maybe in his 60’s and knew nothing about cell phones, but his kids were telling him he should get one for emergencies.  He must have spent about 45 minutes in the store that day.  We had quite a conversation about his kids, his grandkids and his love of motorcycles.  He left the store that day without a phone, but he came back about 2 weeks later with his son to get himself a phone.  When he arrived, I had just stepped out of the store for a minute, so he told my co-worker that he would wait for me because he told her, “She knows me”.  Based on all of the information I had gathered from him, I got him exactly what he needed… nothing fancy or expensive, but something that was useful for him.  The one thing he hadn't mentioned in our conversations was that his son was a business owner.  A month after I made the sale to the father, the son came in and wanted to switch ALL of his company’s current cellular business lines to us.  He said that he was so impressed with how I treated his dad, that he wanted to be sure his company and his employees would get that same service.  They became long-time customers of ours all because I took the time to listen to his dad.

So, take the time to engage in a 2-way conversation with your customers.  Don’t just go off on some rehearsed sales pitch about what you can do for them. Of course you can’t please everybody all the time, but your goal here is to let the customer know that you sincerely want to hear what they have to say.  Let’s face it, we all want to be heard, understood and appreciated from time to time.  Let your customers know that you are genuinely interested in what they have to say. You never know where that relationship can lead to.

The Key to Driving More Customers to Your Business

What does every business need to do every day?  Sell something!!  If you're not making money, it's not a business; it's a hobby.  But of course that's easy to say when you have customers flowing into your business non-stop, but how do you attract those customers in the first place?  Simple.  It's called target marketing.

Marketing involves so many aspects that it generally scares a lot of small business owners because it seems so completely overwhelming, not to mention expensive.  It definitely takes a lot of hard work and dedication to get it right (and even some of us marketers who have been doing this a long time, don't always get it 'right'), but it really is possible to drive more customers into your business without working 20 hour days for the rest of your life.

The key to driving more customers into your business is to know who your customer is.  You can't be everything to everybody, and frankly you don't want to be.  What business are you in?  Do have a retail clothing store?  Think about the niche markets that currently are untapped in your area.  Are you looking to attract the young (teen to early 20's) crowd or are you trying to attract the middle age women?  Make sure your product line and your entire company image reflect that image so that nobody is confused about who you are.  Don't even try to compete with the big guys because you'll wear yourself out and not see any reward for it.  Stay true to who you are and focus on your intended target market.  It'll make your life so much less stressful.