Be proactive

I did a search for the word “service” on the Internet and received 1.6 billion references for the word service. I then proceeded to type in the words “Customer Service” and found 454 million references on the Internet. Over 2 billion references between the two.

So much reference is made to these words yet effective service is something very rare. Complaints lodged today outnumber compliments by 5 to 1. What makes your business different to the business around the corner? Why do your customers choose to buy a product or service from you? How is your company going to cope over the next 5 to 10 years? Twenty to 30 years ago, you had to get in your car and go to a store to purchase a product or service. Information was limited to newspapers, articles in magazines, and the basics of television services.

Today at a click of a button on the Internet, you can search for a product and get thousands of responses. We are overwhelmed with information. Competition today has changed from competing with stores locally to competing with international countries. Global competition is forcing companies to improve their service in order to compete or stay in business. The days of only having access to products in your own town or city are gone. Today you can purchase products or systems online from all over the world.

Some 90% of poor service experiences in most situations are not done intentionally by the customer service representative; they occur because the employee does not know better. Through my research, in some instances employees have been working within a service environment for over 10 years and have never been on any form of training. There are no subjects at school or college that students can take to learn about customer service.

How do they learn you may ask?
Well they get a job with a company and learn from the person next to them. This might not be the best person to learn from as this employee has been with the company for some time and might have many bad habits. The new employee is now exposed to the wrong way of servicing the customer and the employee is now infected with what I call poor service syndrome. Companies need to look at their methods of training and as well as the follow up and follow on process given by their training providers or training department. Training in many instances fails because there is no follow up.

What is your company going to be doing differently today in order to survive tomorrow?
* Develop a quality management function for your service environment.
* Create empowered / motivated work teams.
* Develop effective communication channels between managers and their immediate staff.
* Undertake effective team building.
* Institute effective one-on-one performance management tactics.
* Ensure that all employees understand who their customer is – whether they are internal or external.
* Taking action and giving the customer feedback.
* Ensure you have an ideal and user-friendly service environment.
* Talk to your customers whether it is through surveys or managers walking the floor during peak times.
* Bring employees at ground level into the decision making process when deciding to change a process or procedure that will directly impact on the service to your customers.
* Treat your customers with dignity and respect.