Mastering Customer Service

by Philip M. Anderson
Last week I was at a grocery store here in North Idaho that has obviously tried to step up their customer service.  I first noticed in Seattle when I lived there and now I see it here in Coeur d’Alene, so it’s something that the company has focused on training their employees to implement.

If you ask an employee where something is they politely tell you the aisle and either say, “Here, let me show you”, or “Would you like me to show you?”  Both are great replies.  They will actually drop what they’re doing, whatever that may be, and walk you to the aisle and point out the product in question.

I think this is such a simple but powerful idea and it shows great to the customer.  But can customer service ever go overboard?

Perhaps.

Another thing they do is if you’ve bought two or more items they will ask you if you’d like some help out to the car.  At first glance that may also seem like a great idea.  But when I bought one energy drink and one small blank video tape (to tape a training I wanted to see over and over), the cashier asked if I’d like some help out to my car.

We’re talking a 16 ounce drink and a small tape that weighs an ounce, if that.  I joked that I would need one person to carry each item and then said, “No, I’ll be fine.”

I really like the idea of offering customers these added services.  And, although I’m not a body builder by any stretch of the imagination, I am 6 foot 3 inches and about 215 pounds and it should be rather obvious that I wouldn’t be needing any extra help out to my car with my purchases.

Is this nit picky?  Maybe.  But consider this:

By asking me that question I started to doubt the genuineness of the question.  You see, when an employee asks if they could show you where a product is, or if you need help out to the car, it brings a human element to the experience.  That is something that seems to be going by the wayside so when we experience it it makes us feel good.  It also can be the start of a relationship with store customers.  There are just so many positives that come out of these simple little things.

But when it’s obvious that no help is needed but the question still gets asked it kind of loses some of its authenticity.  Of course, it’s probably always better to error on the side of giving more than less but it was just an observation on my part.

What do you think?

by Philip M. Anderson
Knowing that I’m predominately positive I’m not liking the continuing trend of “NOT” customer service examples of experiences of mine.

Just the other day I was calling my wireless service provider to ask a question.  This could be any company, by the way, that has a customer service department.  I happen to think that my wireless service provider, AT&T, does a pretty good job in the area of customer service, so this experience is not a representation of what I typically run into.  They are usually very professional, courteous, friendly and seem to genuinely care about answering any of my questions or issues.

What happened to me when I called them has happened to me numerous times with other companies’ customers service departments.

This is what happened when I called:

AT&T          Thank you for calling AT&T, how may I help you?

ME               Hello, this is Phil Anderson calling and I have a question regarding my account.

AT&T          OK, I’ll be happy to assist you.  May I get your name please?

Hmmmm.  Do you really want me to give it to you AGAIN?  Will you listen THIS time when I give it to you?

It’s such a simple thing to listen, isn’t it?  Especially when you ask the question, “How may I help you?”  It’s obvious they listened to a portion of my initial comment but not the part that included my name.  If I am trying to do my part to start the dialogue out on the right foot, which helps both parties, wouldn’t it make sense to listen to ALL of what I have to say rather than just an exceprt?

I understand that customer service departments are trying to be efficient and consistent and so they have scripts set up to help with that.  Heaven forbid they let one of their representatives think outside the box by holding a real conversation.  I think companies short change their customers by hiring people that they can mold, people that won’t have to think.  The company, in their infinite widom, thinks that if all of their customer service representatives say the same things, in the same way, with the same tone, then the level of service will be perfectly the same.

Well, Yellowtail makes wine in the same way.  It’s consistent, all right.  Consistently bad.

I think it’s actually lazy of companies to adopt this practice of hiring this way and implementing the scripts all of the time.  Is there a time and a place for scripts?  Absolutely.  But if it leads to somebody asking a question that they have already been told the answer to, then it makes them look foolish.

It’s such a simple thing to just listen to what your customer says when they talk.  Pay attention.  It helps in the long run.

Do you agree?

by Philip M. Anderson
Hello again and welcome to another post about mastering customer service.  I’m sorry it’s been so long since the last one.

Today I’m going to talk about two extremes, one is bad and the other is great.  It’s a bit long winded but, in my opinion, really exposes how important it is to just spend a couple of extra minutes talking through a customers concern because it may help both parties in the long run.

About a month ago I brought my lawn mower in to be serviced at a place that we’ve used for three years, now.  We really don’t like it but it is a “mom and pop” shop and I’m always for giving business to those kinds of businesses if at all possible.  The reasons we didn’t like it were many but I’ll mention a few.

They are S-L-O-W!  SO slow.  Their book keeping is dismal.  They never knew when they were working on something or who it belongs to.  It’s a small and dirty shop.  Once they actually DID the work it was usually right, so THAT part was good.  But to have something take over a month to service is just unacceptable.  Yet, we brought our mower there three times and our weed eater there once.

Then, last summer around the end of August, our mower began running very sluggish, not able to get through the simplist of grass.  So, of course, I brought it in.  They said it would be two weeks before they could even LOOK at it!  OK, call me with the results.  After three weeks they called me and told me what the problem was.  I told them to go ahead with the repair (it was about 100 bucks).  Now we are into October and I want to get one more good mowing done before winter sets in.  Still not done.  Waiting for a part.  By November, I stopped calling.

They called at the end of November to tell me that the mower was completed.  ARE YOU KIDDING ME?

So, this spring, I went in to pick up the mower.  It was around early May.  I half expected them to tell me, since I didn’t pick it up, they got rid of it, but that wasn’t the case.  I paid for it, took it home and started catching up with the grass.  In June, there seemed to be a problem with the choke.  So, I naturally brought it in to my very (least) favorite shop.  What they told me was the last straw.

Since it was a choke issue from before I thought maybe the new problem was related.  I wanted them to take a look at it just in case there was something I wasn’t doing right, or the problem was simple, or maybe they didn’t do something right when putting it back together or something.  I JUST wanted them to take a look at it.  Honestly, I felt they should know this mower inside and out since they just had it for NINE MONTHS!

The man behind the counter said to check it in and they would look at it and let me know what the problem was.  I asked how long that would take and he said they were 2-3 weeks out.  I said, “you can’t just take a quick look at it now?”  And he retorted, “no, it’s 2-3 weeks for me to do that.”

There were a couple of other people in the area at the time, including one of their suppliers, and so I told him that we have only used this shop in the past but if it’s really going to take aNOTHER 2-3 weeks this time then they had just lost a customer.  The people that were there glanced up from what they were doing but all of the employees just watched me walk out the door.  Apparently, they have such a strong customer base that they can afford to lose people because they just watched me walk out the door.

I was floored.  In all of my years as a customer service expert I have never seen something like that.  I will never go back in there and I make sure to tell everyone I know about the experience.  Suffice it to say, this is the “NOT” part of this post.

Well, I still had a mower that didn’t work.  So, I drove about a block up the road to another shop, about the same size, but MUCH cleaner.  I got out of my truck and approached the steps to the door when an employee came out to greet me, shook my hand and said, “welcome, what can we do for you?”  (See, from one extreme to the other.)

I explained my situation and he said, “let’s have a look.”  We took the mower out of the back of the truck and to my surprise, and embarrassment, I had been using the choke backwards so that’s why it didn’t start.  He pulled the cord and it started right up.  My fault, my error, my bad, but that’s all the other place had to do as well and they didn’t seem interested enough to even do that.  No charge and no wait and I drove back with my mower working just fine.

I thanked him profusely and told him he had a new customer and even explained my experience from the other place to him.  He wasn’t surprised as he had heard it before from other people.  Who knows, that might be why he opened his business in close proximity to the other place.

This is an emphatic “HOT” as far as customer service goes.  You really MAY not have the time to take that quick look at a problem because you are so backlogged.  But if you do nad if it just happens to be a quick and easy solution then you not only don’t add to your backlog but you also have a very happy customer.  And if, in addition, you don’t charge for that quick look you’ll likely not only have a happy customer but a customer that will give you free pub which is the best type of advertising in the world.

Tell me your story of a good or bad customer service experience you’ve had and I’ll discuss it in a blog.

Until next time, expect the most and give the most.

by Philip M. Anderson
Alright, this might not be politically correct to write but, seriously, anybody in a customer service profession should stick to the language that is locally spoken.

I was getting a haircut the other day and the person cutting my hair DID speak English and it wasn’t broken and her accent didn’t hinder the communication.  All that was good.  She also was very friendly AND she did something that I was very impressed with and that was calling me by name, once she knew my name, as if we’d known each other for years.  I really liked that and it made me feel very welcome.

This might have even been a “HOT” post had she not done the following:  Spoken in Vietnamese with her co-worker while cutting my hair.  There really is no way to candy coat this becaue it’s just plain rude to do that.  I was in an area where English is vastly spoken, an urban white neighborhood, so there was no “mis-reading” which language should be spoken.  But there she was with her male co-worker speaking “their” language and making me feel completely left out.

“What could they be saying”? I was thinking to myself (in English, by the way).  “Are they making fun of me being bald?  Maybe they were laughing at my bushy eyebrows.”  All these thoughts could have been going through my mind and more.  Good thing I was able to tune them out as I tried to enjoy my haircut but many people won’t be able to do that and will feel self conscious.

If you’re in the customer service industry, especially when you rely on tips for added income, your job is to make the customer feel as comfortable and welcome as possible.  These employees did not do that.  America IS a collection of many cultures and diverse backgrounds that come with different languages.  I understand that.  But English is the main language of this country and everybody, especially people in the customer service industry, where you have face to face contact with your customers, should know how to speak it fluently.  That doesn’t mean you can’t speak your language when you are away from the customers.

I will add one more positive, although, it’s more of a personal thing.  When she shampood my hair she did a FANTASTIC job of massaging my scalp, something that I really need, love, want and desire when I’m getting a hair cut.  Many people either don’t care or don’t want that but I am not one of those and this lady did a marvelous job of that.

But even with these two positives, the one negative outweighed them.  It’s like most cases where you can do EVERYthing right except for one little thing and that’s what the customer remembers.  It’s not right nor is it fair but it is reality.  You can’t control everything but you can control what language you communicate with your co-workers in and that should be a language that is predominately spoken locally.

Thank you for visiting and reading this post.  I have so many things to write about so keep stopping by.  You can also give me some of your biggest customer service complaints by making a comment.  I welcome any and all topics.

by Philip M. Anderson
I have a new little hitch to my posts:  “HOT” or “NOT”!  After a few, tell me what you think, ok?

The last post was certainly a positive so it would be a “HOT” as it dealt with the staff of the Ayres Suites in Yorba Linda, California.  They always had eye contact while saying a genuine, “hello”.  THIS post is a big “NOT”.

I recently went into a little town market in our neck of the woods (and we ARE in the woods) to buy some milk and bread and wine.  I was one of only two people in the store and then they got busy.  As I was being rang up for my purchases the teller apparently knew the person three people behind me in line and proceeded to “spar” with him.  During this little series of comments he told her, “why don’t you just hurry up?”  At that point she went from slow to slower.  No smile, no conversation with me, who she was in the process of ringing up.  This was painful.  The people behind me and myself were all being very patient while this clerk moved in slow motion.

ANY body in ANY retail sales position absolutely MUST pay attention and BE AWARE of the surround situation.  There is a time and place for “sparring” with  somebody you know.  It’s good to have regular customers that feel comfortable coming back to the same place to do business because they feel acknowledged.  But in this situation you have to move things along so that you get through the line as effeciently as possible.

I understand that these clerks probably make minimum wage but, in my opinion, this is no excuse for poor customer service.  A smile takes no extra education.  Eye contact and small conversation is easy to do.  Too many of these clerks have lazy attitudes and then wonder why they can’t move forward in their careers.  It’s the simple stuff that brings people back.  And it’s the simple stuff, or the lack thereof, that will keep them from coming back, too.

by Philip M. Anderson
Have you noticed that sometimes just a simple, “hello”, from staff, any staff, at a hotel will make you feel more at ease?

I am staying in a hotel in Southern California.  It is a fairly nice hotel, one we’ve not stayed in before.  The rooms are somewhat old fashioned with antique styled furniture, drapes and colors.  It gives me a feeling of walking into a room at my great grandparents as a child.  The staff is nice enough–they listen to questions and answer in a way they’ve been trained to answer.

When companies talk about having great customer service I think they sometimes miss the mark about what that means.  Of course you want to have issues handled quickly in a friendly, competent way.  And this hotel seems to do that.  What caught my eye was, ironically, their staff catching MY eye.

Every time I walk by a staff member they look at me, eye to eye, and say “hello” in a genuine way.  When I say every time, I actually mean every time.  And they do it like it’s their nature, like it’s the culture of this hotel.  In my experience, a genuine “hello” and a friendly smile is surprisingly hard to come by in the service industry.  Yet, they both go miles to make people feel comfortable and at home.

I talked with Eleanor Acosta, the Assistant Manager of Ayres Suites in Yorba Linda, where we’re staying, and asked her if the staff is trained to do that.  She said that, although they want everyone that works at the hotel to do that, they don’t train them to say, “hello”, to everyone.

That actually makes me feel even better because it really IS genuine and comes from the heart.  Now, mind you, this is just my opinion and others may not share my sentiment about this.  There are certainly some people who just want to be left alone and this is also something management should train their staff to be aware of.  That’s why it’s so important to hire people who can think and have good decision making skills.

This post is not supposed to be an attempt at promoting this particular hotel but I do have one more thing I’d like to pass along.  While most hotels these days have “complimentary” buffet breakfasts (they work the cost of these breakfasts into the room rates) they usually fall short of anything close to quality.  The Ayres Suites actually made real scrambled eggs (one day with real bacon!) and real hash browns.  You can make waffles with their pre-measured portions so that they’re fresh and hot.  And lastly, they will even make an omlet for you!  I was impressed from start to finish with this place and it all started with a genuine “hello”.

Next time you’re staying at a hotel be aware of how many staff members, if any, say, “hello”, to you and take notice how it makes you feel.

by Philip M. Anderson
Have you ever done business with one company over another because they sold you on the fact their customer service is better than all the rest?  So have I and I’m usually disappointed.  This site will hopefully help to remedy the missing customer service in our society by giving excellent tips and advice to those in the customer service industry.

I have been in and out, around and through customer service in my 30 year career.  I most recently helped build the premier valet company in Seattle, Washington.  I will have a book on customer service coming out soon.  I hope you will enjoy reading my posts as I cite in detail the nuances of great customer service.