Some notes on Customer Service

Some notes on Customer Service

Everyone, whether at work or at home, is your customer because we all have needs and provide services for others. Here are some random jottings of information on customer service from various sources and differing opinions that you may not have encountered before. I shall start with a quote from the book ‘How To Win Customers And Keep Them For Life’ by Michael LeBoeuf Ph.D:

“What is a Customer?”

“A Customer is the most important person in this office… in person or by mail. A Customer is not dependent on us… we are dependent on him. A Customer is not an interruption of our work… he is the purpose of it. We are not doing a favour by serving him… he is doing us a favour by giving us the opportunity to do so. A Customer is not someone to argue or match wits with. Nobody ever won an argument with a Customer. A Customer is a person who brings us his wants. It is our job to handle them profitably to him and ourselves”.

On a course I did some years ago we learnt that, “customer care is what the customer thinks it is”. But who is your customer? Your customer, according to Brian Tracy, is anyone who is dependent upon you for something. If you are in middle management your customers are your boss and those below you who report to you. If you are a worker on the front line your customers are those above you and the people who purchase from or use your company’s services. If you are the boss then all those below you are your customers, as well as your external customers. “If you are the boss, your boss is the customer”; Brian Tracy. This is why customer service MUST start at the top for a company to truly be successful.

“Consistently providing a level of service exceeding the customer’s expectations until it becomes a standard”. Sign on the wall of a Norwich recruitment agency.

If you were to ask someone what the purpose of a business is they would probably say to make money, to make a profit. But that is only secondary. The true purpose of a business is to obtain and keep customers. In Peters’ and Waterman’s book ‘In Search of Excellence’ they describe how the top 5% of the Fortune 500 companies of the United States of America have an absolute and total obsession with customer service. In other words the very best of the best got that way through a total dedication to customer care. Thinking of everyone as a customer helps our self-improvement. Here are a few more tips from Michael LeBoeuf:

1. The secret to winning and keeping customers is to reward them. 2. To win new customers ask the golden question: “What’s the unmet want?” 3. To keep them for life ask the platinum questions: “How are we doing?” and “How can we get better?” 4. Whenever you have contact with a customer you are the company to that customer. 5. Concentrate on helping customers buy what is best for them. 6. The five best ways to keep customers coming back are: Be Reliable, be Credible, be Attractive, be Responsive and be Empathetic. “Reliable care” keeps customers coming back.

I will finish with my favourite quote about customer care:

“Those who enter to buy support me. Those who come to flatter please me.

Those who complain teach me how I may please others so that more will come.

Only those hurt me who are displeased but do not complain. They refuse me permission to correct my errors and thus improve my service”.

Marshall Field. Business leader and philanthropist.