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How to Provide Good Customer Service - CRT
Good Customer service is not the responsibility of one department but a philosophy that should be seen at every level of the company.
1: Listen to customers – take every opportunity to hear their views to understand them, to know what makes them tick, what makes them happy what makes them angry.
2: Talk to customers – seek to run ideas past them – integrate their views and opinions into the running of your business.
3: Act on the detail – from your interactions with the customer, pour over the detail, because within it are nuggets that can help grow your business. Yorkie – came out of the public asking why chocolate bars were getting thinner.
4: Be happy – Shoppers like happy people. This is not an act, it cannot be turned on by a simple phrase ‘Have a nice day’. For consumers to have a happy experience employees MUST enjoy their job.
5: Go the extra mile – When a customer experiences someone going the extra mile it has a major impact on their loyalty. These often minor adjustments to improving customer service are the building blocks to help create a strong customer focussed brand.
6: Add value at every touch – every instance that the customer comes into contact with your organisation should enhance the perception of a strong customer focus. Just one break in that chain and all your efforts to improving customer service will be in vain.
7: It's all about people – Your people are your prized assets. You can have a world class 'how to serve shoppers' manual, but its people who deliver good customer service. To replicate high levels of customer satisfaction across multiple stores, employees have to receive the same level of care and attention that you give to the public.
8: Be engaged – 'The customer is right' needs to be at the heart of your companies' vision and culture.
9: Never compromise – You cannot cut corners in servicing the public. Customer suspicion means that any compromise has the capacity to destroy the customer brand you’ve built.
10: Employ people with people skills– If you are to build a consumer focussed organisation, you need people’s people. They need to have strong communication skills and the ability to make empathetic decisions.
Good customer service can be achieved by putting these steps into action every day. To achieve an ongoing improvement of customer service requires a consumer focussed culture to be running throughout the business.
