The Customer Authority

Today’s post is the first of what I hope to be many submission on “Don’t Be This Customer” – customer stories told from the employee’s view. The following was sent in by Jim from Atlanta, Ga. Take a look and see if you agree on how he handled the situation:

I work at Target, and I always put my best effort forward when providing

customer service. In fact, it’s my favorite part of my job. Now, I work in

the electronics department, where Target gets about fifty percent of its

profit. So not only are the team members of that department responsible for

making more sales than the others, we have to answer more questions and take

more returns (not including the customer service desk, of course). This

brings me to one of my biggest pet peeves. As anyone with experience in

retail will tell you, it’s impossible to please everyone. And when I speak

to one of these displeased people, the comment I most often receive is, “But

I’m the customer!” This would be a valid complaint if not for one word:

“the.” No single person is ever *the* customer, he or she is *a* customer.

And there is a huge difference.

For example, one day, exactly one minute before my shift was to end, a

customer asks me if we have a certain DVD player in stock. Rather than

refer her to the team member taking over for the next shift, I decide to go

the extra mile and check for her. I informed her that we were out of that

model and apologized. She proceeded to shout at me about her frustration at

how poorly Target is supposedly run. She said that she bought the same

model DVD player previously, and that it was defective. She took it back

immediately, asking for a refund. Since she had thrown out the receipt, all

we could offer her was an exchange. The exchange was also defective. It

was a minor problem, so she kept it, rather than go through the hassle of

returning it again. An *entire year later*, the player completely broke

down and ruined one of her DVDs. Upon asking for a refund, she was told

that since the ninety day return period had ended, she could not return the

player. I politely asked what she would like us to do to help fix the

situation, and she yelled, “Y’all ought to do the right THING!” I inquired

what the “right thing” was, to which she screamed, “TAKE IT BACK! I’m THE

CUSTOMER for God’s sake!”

At this point, I was already about ten minutes late to clock out, so I told

her about our Guest Comment Cards and corporate hotline, since we at the

store level really have no control over Target’s policies. At the very

least, she was understanding about this. Still, I had already wasted

company time and money listening to a customer complain about a situation

that was entirely her fault. I have never heard of a company that would take

back a return a year after the purchase without a warrantee, and I’m sure

this particular customer hasn’t, ether. But she forgot one crucial thing:

she is *a* customer, not *the* customer.

Do you agree or disagree with how Jim handled the situation? What would you have done in the same situation? Tell me what you think!

If you’d like to read more from Jim about his real-life experiences or general musings,  check out his blog at Jimboroni.com!

If you have a great customer service story to share, please send your submission to malvarez@thecustomerauthority.com.

I was at the grocery store deli the other day ordering some sliced turkey breast. I ordered a full pound like I always do. The lady behind the counter smiled and nodded and proceeded to fill my order. When she was done, she handed me my package and was off. I realized almost immediately my order was much lighter than usual. Upon looking at the price tag print-out, I realized she had only given me half a pound of turkey. Noticing my helper had already moved on to another customer, and debating if I really wanted to wait or not, I decided to take my order and move on.

Not the most exciting story, but it demonstrates a key factor in customer service: Listening to the customer. In order to assure you get everything right in order to satisfy the customer, you must ensure you are listening to their every word. One small, minor mistake can escalate into huge problems resulting in upset customers, loss in revenue, and/or costly fixes.

One way to combat missing something important when speaking to a customer is to repeat what the customer told you. By doing this simple check, you’re not only letting the customer know you were listening, but you’re making sure you’ve got it right. Not only will the customer be impressed by this, he’ll be grateful to know you’ve made sure their needs are met.

Moving on with the 25 Things You Should Do in Customer Service, I discussed the power of the smile. The next two items on the list go hand in hand with that smile:

• Speak with a pleasant voice

• Act like you are happy to see/speak with a customer – even if you are having a bad day

Have you ever walked into a store and the minute you made eye contact with the salesperson, they immediately looked away – or worse yet – looked like their least favorite person just walked in? (That would be you, by the way).

Maybe you’ve called your phone company up to change your service. When you asked the customer representative for help, you received a grunt in reply, a distinct sigh of discontent, and a reluctant voice asking “What do you want?”

Doesn’t leave a very good first impression, does it?

What I’ve never understood is how people in customer service can do this in the first place. And yes, it really does happen.

Again, it’s simple common sense and making a conscious effort to be nice to your customers.

Maybe it’s the way I was raised. I was always taught to be polite to anyone and everyone. Good manners were instilled in me from a very early age. This included being pleasant even when you didn’t want to be.

Perhaps that’s the key – it’s about good manners. When someone you’ve invited to your house comes to visit, you don’t welcome them in without acknowledgement. You don’t ignore their presence, act like they’re bothering you, or look down your nose at them, do you? Of course not!

It’s the same principle with your customers. You’ve extended an open invitation for them to visit your place of business…your home. You should always welcome them inside with open arms. Let them know how happy you are to have them there. By that very acknowledgement, you’re showing the customer that you care about them and their needs. And that matters.

Who knows? Next time that customer visits you they might even bring some of their friends!

I recently spoke about the 25 Things You SHOULD Do in Customer Service in a previous post. Since that was just a basic list, I thought over the next few days I’d go over everything in a little more detail so not only will you understand why these things are important, but how they can effect your business. Some of them are obviously common sense and speak for themselves, but it’s amazing how even the simplest things are overlooked or neglected in the customer service industry. For example; take the basic power of the smile.

“We shall never know all the good that a simple smile can do”

Mother Teresa of Calcutta

A smile is a reflex as well as a conscious effort. And in customer service it can make the difference between a sale and a customer walking out the door. As an owner, manager, or employee, a smile given to your customers is a warm greeting; an invitation to come in, look around, and buy! It puts your customers at ease, makes them feel comfortable being in your store, and even want to stay awhile.

If your work with customers is on the phone, it’s still important to smile. A customer can “hear” a smile over the phone through your tone of voice. Call Center trainers even teach their employees to smile while on the phone because it elevates the voice and it’s difficult to sound unpleasant when you’re genuinely smiling.

Now that’s not to say you have to go through you’re entire day grinning from ear to ear. If you did that, you’d probably start to creep people out. But do make an effort when there are customers around.

Greet them warmly when they come in. Smile at them when you offer your assistance. If they come to you first, don’t frown as if they’re bothering you. Give them a smile and help them. Make sure your smile is genuine, even if you’re having a lousy day. A customer will know in a heartbeat if you’re faking it.

People simply respond well to friendly people. The best salespeople aren’t the ones that are smooth and slick. They’re the ones who emulate natural kindness, enthusiasm, and honesty. They gain trust and confidence. And they can do it all with a smile.

People want to like your products and your business. What they want even more is to be treated well. So give them one more reason to make buying from you a fantastic experience. And don’t forget to smile!

This week I’ve come down with a pretty bad head cold. Sneezing, coughing, stuffy head… I’ve become a Nyquil commercial. The last thing I really want to be doing is writing, simply because it’s pretty hard to concentrate when my head is all clogged up. But I don’t want to leave Monday’s blog empty, especially after a long weekend. So here I am, plugging away after downing some Thera-flu to get the creative juices temporarily flowing.

I thought that this might actually make a good topic for the day; not letting your personal life get in the way of providing good customer service. While being sick is a little different, it brings to mind that we all have a bad day from time to time – usually because something is going on in our personal life that causes stress.

I’ve been on the receiving end of what must have been pretty horrible days from some customer service representatives. And let me tell you, understanding they had a bad day did not at all convince me that I should be sympathetic to the fact that they acted disinterested, unhelpful, or were downright rude to me.

I don’t care what is going on in your personal life, if you can’t leave it at home when you start your day, you’re doing yourself and your customers a disservice. Your demeanor, or that of your employees, is a direct reflection of not only your customer service, but your entire store. If a customer walks away feeling they were treated poorly by an employee who decided to take their foul mood out on them, you can sure as heck can bet they’re not going to be coming back for more.

When I worked in customer service, I constantly had stress going on, both at work and at home. I’ve had major break-ups to deal with, death, accidents, heated arguments, and financial worries. You name it, I probably dealt with it. But not one customer would have ever known anything was wrong when speaking with me on the phone because I never – I repeat NEVER – let my personal baggage enter into the conversation. People used to be amazed how I could switch so easily to my “pleasant” voice, even if I’d just finished venting a thousand expletives over whatever crisis was on hand at the moment.

Some people are naturally adept at doing this. But it’s actually really not that difficult. It’s simply a matter of choosing to be pleasant. And really it shouldn’t even have to be a choice; it should be something you simply DO. If you decide that you just don’t give a darn and every customer is going to know you’re having a bad day, week, or month, then you probably don’t need to be in the customer service business in the first place.

So next time you’re having a bad day, try finding a way to get rid of some of that pent up stress before you start dealing with people for the day. Vent to someone you trust. Write a quick letter to yourself about what’s bothering you. Go outside to your car and scream for a minute with all the windows rolled up. (Although you might want to make sure no one else is around to see you!). Go someplace quiet for a 5 minute meditation. Whatever it takes to help you get through the rest of the day.

And when you face that next customer or speak to them on the phone, let them think you’re actually having the BEST day of your life. Who knows – maybe by the end of it you’ll even begin to think that yourself!

Today I got to experience (again) one of my growing pet peeves – voice-automated customer service systems. You know the ones where you call for customer service help and you have a pleasant-sounding man or woman asking for your information – except they aren’t real, they’re a machine. The purpose of which I presume was to save businesses money, route calls more efficiently, and try to trouble-shoot problems without a customer having to wait to speak to someone “live”. Sounds good on paper at least…

In reality, voice-automated customer service systems can quite frankly be a pain in the you-know-what. Don’t get me wrong. If I can get through a call faster without having to speak to a live person and get what I need done, it’s great. But what happens when you want to speak to a real live person?

I tried to do that today with my mortgage company. I noticed something that looked a little “off” on my account, so I called them up to check on it. Simple, right? I thought so anyway. I hear a pleasant, almost-human voice of the machine asking for my account information. No problems here. She verifies my account and asks a few more security questions. Still no problems. It wasn’t until she wanted to know what type of help I needed that things began to go wrong.

Apparently, you’re only given so many options for a problem. If yours isn’t one of them, you’re out of luck. So I tried the simple option of pressing “0”. This worked before at other companies when you want to talk to a live person, so I figured, why not? Once I pressed “0”, the voice asked if I was sure I didn’t want to still speak with her. It seems the machine didn’t really want me to speak to anyone but her. A little odd, but I confirmed I wanted a real person.

In her pleasant mechanical voice she says; “Ok, I’ll transfer you”. But instead of transferring me, I was re-routed back to the very beginning of the menu and was soon “speaking” to the machine all over again. Clearly the machine lied to me.

This happened two more times. By the time I was finished, I had gone from mild-mannered woman to a raging, wild-eyed, vein-popping lunatic. Even my cats had run out of the room to seek cover.

Needless to say, voice-automated systems are not my favorite. And if you take anything from this story, you might stop to think that I’m probably not the only one with this type of experience. In fact, most people I’ve spoken to have the tendency to either grunt or grimace when I bring this up.

Now I’m not telling you to get rid of your system. What I am saying is to make sure your system is as user-friendly as you can possibly make it. Ask the questions:

• Is it easy to understand?
• Is it easy to follow?
• Does it give several options?
• Does it give too MANY options?
• Does it easily allow you to speak to a representative? (Very important!)

And please, if you do anything else, take off those annoying advertisements that we’re forced to listen to. Sometimes you’re forced to listen to an entire announcement before you can go to any options. Personally I don’t like being held hostage to listen to something I don’t want to listen to. And I think less of the companies who practice this. So take some advice – can the ads. We already get enough of them as it is.

Have a nice day and thanks for shopping with us!

Today’s customer service story is from Joseph Shields – Lilburn, Georgia.

It was a bit after noon on the day after Easter (2009) and my chocolate-loving wife sent me to troll the local stores for whatever Easter candy (especially chocolate!) might be on sale. In all, I spent two hours cruising through several local emporia.

At the first Walgreen’s I came to, the candy display had quite a few signs all over the shelves, screaming “All Easter Candy 50% off.” They literally left no area of the entire candy display unsigned. Clearly Easter and “ordinary” candy were somewhat randomly intermixed, once you got past the marshmallow items like Peeps.

Having to be cost-conscious, but wanting to supply the answer to my wife’s (and mine!) chocolate cravings for a few weeks, I shopped the shelves and chose about five or six items. This included a large Whitman’s Sampler box and another two large boxes of another brand in a cookie dough recipe chocolate formulation. Included were two Dove chocolate “flat egg” molded items.

Only the Dove chocolate scanned at 50% off, the rest did not scan as reduced price. I bought the Dove chocolate eggs and spoke with the manager. I took her to the display, pointed out the placement of the discount signs all over the candy racks, and then pointed out the remaining cookie dough chocolate product one level below the top shelf. A hanging sign on the top shelf and a mounted sign two shelves below the product boldly trumpeted the 50% discount in heavy black on brilliant orange sign material.

The manager pled lack of time to have made clear what was and what was not on sale. After I pointed out that, with the signage, I could be nasty and insist on the discount advertised, but would not. I then left, after saying that while her intention was not to mislead, the result came awfully close to being misleading and that I thought she should immediately correct the situation.

Thirty minutes later I was at another Walgreen’s. As I found the candy display, I noticed two things. (1) They too had a “50% off Easter candy” prominently displayed, and (2) An employee was very busy rapidly removing all the non-Easter candy from the display. I suppose that the first store’s manager had called the next store down the road.

In telling my wife about it that night, she suggested that the first manager should have allowed me to purchase the items I had chosen at the 50% discount and then moved to correct the display. I agree, but I did not think to suggest it at the time.

In summary, the store did not handle their planning or their signage very well. The management failed to think like a customer when they looked at their own display. I will still go to Walgreens from time to time. But I might not be so understanding next time!

I thought this story, while not a big deal in some people’s eyes, was actually quite significant because it’s often the little errors – and how they are managed by those who have the power to correct the problem – that cause customers to decide whether or not they want to continue shopping somewhere.

Do you think the customer should have demanded the discount instead of walking away? Do you think the manager did the right thing? How would you have handled this situation?

If you have a great customer service story to share, please send your submission to malvarez@thecustomerauthority.com.

Are you sick and tired of hearing about the doom and gloom of the recession? I know I am. It’s gotten to the point I don’t even watch TV anymore because it only ends up being more bad news. But let’s face it – the recession is here and it’s going to stick around awhile longer before it starts to get better.

I do have some good news though. And it’s good news that can help you gain profits during the worst of times. It’s all based on what this blog is about – Customer Service Excellence (CSE).

If there’s anything I tell you that I want you to truly take to heart, it’s that customer service is the heartbeat of your organization. It’s not your marketing (although that certainly is probably the second most important function of your business). It’s not the Sales, Accounting, IT, or the Executive Board. It’s none of those things. It’s Customer Service.

Customers are your bread and butter. A business cannot succeed if they have no customers. Period. I don’t care what you say, if you don’t have people buying your stuff, you’re not surviving. Which is why CSE should be the number one priority in a recession.

CSE isn’t just about giving great service. It’s about evaluating and re-evaluating your customers and what you can and need to do for them. Your service needs to match the environment around you. In a recession, people are struggling to make ends meet. They may have lost income or reduced income. Or they may worry their job situation isn’t secure enough to spend money like they used to.

Whatever their concern, you need to adjust your business to match those concerns. Especially if you want to see them keep coming in. Offer discounts. Bundle promotions. Lower fees. Bring back lay-a-ways. Cater directly to the people who have the most financial worries. Do whatever it takes to show customers that you understand their needs and are willing to help them.

Does this guarantee you’ll get more customers? No. There are no guarantees – especially during a recession. But I can assure you that a customer is going to look at your store first before your competition, especially if they see you’re offering deals that no one else is. And when this recession is over, you’ll be the one they’ll remember when they can afford to go shopping again without any apprehension.

This story was submitted by Fred Leo of Atlanta, Georgia:

Many years ago we bought a used Infiniti M30 convertible from the Infiniti

dealer, and we loved it. After several months, though, we noticed that the

convertible top was just slightly maligned at the front of one lip with

the body. It really wasn’t that big a deal, to us. The car didn’t leak, and

it seemed to make no difference in wind noise, but we mentioned it when we

brought it in for service. They chose to fix it under warranty. We got a

whole new top on the car for nothing, and they gave us a loaner. Sadly, the

car was rear-ended about two years later, and Peach Auto did such a horrible

job repainting it that the insurance company totaled it. But we’ve been

Infiniti fans ever since, so much so that we bought two — off eBay. One

worked out fine; the other is a hideous nightmare. But we’ve never forgotten

the great service from the dealer. Customer service like that feels like a near-religious experience.

If you have a great customer service story to share, please send your submission to malvarez@thecustomerauthority.com.

Today I got an email from a friend on an article written by Kimberly Palmer, senior editor for US News & World Report and author of the blog Alpha Consumer. In the article, Kimberly interviews journalist Emily Yellin on her new book, Your Call Is (not that) Important to Us: Customer Service and What it Reveals About Our World and Our Lives. I thought the article was a great demonstration of why customer service excellence is so important, now more than ever. I contacted Kimberly to ask if I could re-post the article here, and she graciously accepted. So please read on and feel free to offer your comments!

Why Customer Service Has Gotten So Bad

April 06, 2009 10:57 AM ET | Kimberly Palmer | Permanent Link | Print

Wondering why you have to wait on hold for an hour each time your credit card company makes a mistake? Or why the cable company demands that you sit at home for three hours and wait for its representative to show up? Journalist Emily Yellin’s new book, Your Call Is (not that) Important to Us: Customer Service and What It Reveals About Our World and Our Lives, answers those questions and more. She takes on the customer service industry, and explains why it makes so many of us miserable. Excerpts from our recent conversation:

To see full article, go to http://www.usnews.com/blogs/alpha-consumer/2009/4/6/why-customer-service-has-gotten-so-bad.html?s_cid=et-0406

Kimberly Palmer, senior editor for U.S. News & World Report, writes about how to save money, avoid scams, manage debt, and be a savvy shopper. Check out her blog “Alpha Consumer” at www.usnews.com.  Share with her your own money issues by sending questions to alphaconsumer@usnews.com.

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