No matter what business you are in you are in the customer service business. Accepted it now. Small and medium size businesses ask me “How much customer service did I need to offer?” The answer is a “ridiculous amount”.
You must be offering so much customer service that your customers are contemplating getting a restraining order on you because you are calling and bothering them so much to insure their absolute bliss with your product and/or service.
Also you need to be listening. Sometime great customer service is just listening. When one of my customer’s call me I try to just listen first. Why are they upset? Do they feel valued by me?
If they are not feeling valued by me I try my best to let them know I value their business (no matter how big or small they are) and I am willing to go the extra mile to help them feel valued.
My wife and I went to the Bed, Bath and Beyond in the Landmark Center in Boston on Saturday and I experienced a very high level of customer love.
First we walked in the store and there was a greeter. Nice. Then we started looking for a few items and any time we had trouble there was a staff person close by and they were very helpful. Off to the next item. Couldn’t find it and then “poof” another staff person walked us over to it.
Had to go to customer service and there were three people behind the counter to help.
We pick up our four things, ourselves and our “20% coupon” and went to the check out. Two people were in front of us. Poof! A person appears with a radio to say wait in this lane and someone will be right there. Poof! A very nice check out person appeared and had us check out ASAP. I had to validate my parking. Poof! The check out person took my ticket and walked it over to the customer service center and stamped my ticket and handed it back to me. At this point I am giddy.
We must have interacted with at least six (6) employees. All were great and very helpful. I left the store thinking. “I would like to go back there. They value me.”
Bed, Bath and Beyond (Fenway, Boston, MA) did a great job. I left there feeling very valued. We all have walked in stores with no one around or many staffers around and no one helping. Everyone was chipping in here.
40% of people don’t return to a retail location because they are treated with indifference. Not badly. Just with indifference.
Every interaction you have with your customer is important. You need to be listening at all times and you need to make sure they feel valued or that will be the last time you see them.
