Indian lawyer, Politician, Social activist, Writer and Nationalist, Mahatma Gandhi gave his definition on who a customer is. He said, “A customer is the most important visitor on our premises. He is not dependent on us. We are dependent on him. He is not an interruption in our work – he is the purpose of it. We are not doing him a favor by serving him. He is doing us a favor by giving us the opportunity to serve him.”
Great customer experiences are few and independent, especially in our part of the world. This is a key issue that everyone should be concerned with. When you epitomize an excellent service provider, you stand out. This creates an impressive image of you and your organization. Your customers determine how successful your organization can become to a large extent. Customers are the ones patronizing your products and services, and can make or unmake your brand through word of mouth (WOM). Today, most companies have their customers at heart, and have become very customer centric. The concerns, inputs and feedback from customers are seriously analyzed and considered in most organizations. Customers are now given the opportunity to connect and feel part of the organization, which is helping build loyalty.
The vision of being customer centric must first be seen by the leader, but must trickle down to entry level, so that it becomes a culture and everyone lives that behavior. In fact, customer service must be considered as everyone’s business.
How you relate with your customers is paramount to the success of your business. It is not just providing service for customers,but a keen interest in them? Going the extra mile in making sure a customer is happy and satisfied with a company’s products or services is one way to promote good customer relationship. Here, your feedback, after sales service, customer periodic engagements etc. are all very important. It is essential that you make the customer feel loved and appreciated, treat them like you would treat your sibling or loved one, be pleasant to talk with. Handling people and their work is one difficult task, but I believe that with effective people and good communication skills, it would not be so much of an arduous task.
As a leader, it is important that I ensure my customers are completely satisfied. To achieve this, follow-up calls on service, prompt response to feedback from customers, and giving them the opportunity to share their thoughts is a practice. Customers will always have certain expectations that have to be met. In the bank, customers walk in day in day out with several proposals, commendations, suggestions and complaints. The customer experience provider must be in the best position to handle such situations. You will definitely have different types of clients, some hard headed, some calm and you ought to be versatile when dealing with them as a leader. The approach you use for Enoch cannot be the same for Sandra, as each of these customers are different and have very unique traits.
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In recent times, businesses are more appreciative of their customers, their views and complaints. The businesses now place scientific base instrument that allows customers to rate their services from all their focal points. The survey usually takes an average of five minutes, with each question taking an average of three to four seconds to respond to, after which feedback is analyzed and sent to management. Management then uses the evaluation to work on how best to serve customers. This system is expected to provide avant-garde information on service delivery generated by customers.
Nowadays, when you call customer care department of many organization the service provider is more than willing to assist you. They have upgraded from, “Hello, what can I do for you?” to “Good day sir/madam, how may I be of assistance to you, is there any way I can help?” etc , making customer experience nicer and more friendly. They are more interested in finding a solution to your problem than just picking up their phone and answering your calls.
To tell you the truth, customers have always perceived that service providers are unlikely to listen and attend to their issues, so hardly will they even try complaining. And the few who do, are sometimes seen as “trouble clients”. Thus, a lot of customers will rather move away from your product or service quietly without relaying any feedback…hence, the danger of using negative word of mouth (NWOM) to destroy your brand.
Not too long ago, the most common places to complain of receiving very bad customer experiences were the government agencies, and also some other private firms. Customers are very much aware of their due in today’s business environment and that is ensuring a quick change in this very bad attitude from service providers. Recently, I overheard a customer telling a friend of how she experienced a great service from a telecommunication company and also one of the ministries. The expression of joy and surprise, tells that this was least of her expectations as her perceived service was not what she received. This is good and means we are making progress. This reiterates the point that Customer service is becoming a focal point for most organizations.
A colleague just a week ago, also shared a story of how he was wowed with the turn of events when he visited one of our government agencies. Hearing these positive feedback from customers,are informing us that the tables are turning now, and customers are being prioritized by a number of customer salient organizations.
Your clients are one of the best people to market your products. If a client is satisfied with your services, they would not think twice when recommending your products or services. Do well to consider customer’s needs and concerns and keep them happy and satisfied as much as possible, because a satisfied customer is the source of free advertisement….Positive word of mouth (PWOM).
Famous Author, John C. Maxwell once said, “A leader is one who knows the way, goes the way and shows the way”. Show your team members how to go about things as a leader, lead by example and wow your internal customers, so they can effortlessly do same to your external customers. As a leader ensure your organization has a service excellence culture. Most importantly, institute some recognition awards and some initiatives such as service personality of the month, quarter, year etc. service role models, service champions and all others that will ensure customer experience is embraced by every team member and becomes a part of the whole organization.
Let us remember the great words from JC Penny-“Every great business is built on friendship”. So first make a friend, then a client, so they know you have them at heart.