Grade a Customer Service – Create Better Days For Your Customers

What makes a major corporation or a small business an excellent one? An outstanding staff! Winning the Small Business of the Year award, three consecutive years in a row? Manufacturing the best products? How about this one – a company that has employees who come to work early; always work through lunch; gets the job done; or clocks-out one hour early because they have completed all the assigned jobs.

Well, even that one is not close. A company is only as good as their customers say they are. How do you obtain award winning comments from your customers? Build better relationships? Top executives and management should design a culture where employees would love to work everyday. The entire company, both the decision makers and employees, should work together to help their customers, have Better Days!

Let me explain. The customer defines value in terms of quality, cost, time or delivery. Example: When the owner of a car drives their vehicle into an auto dealership to receive maintenance, they enjoy being greeted by a representative who will make them feel important. It would be a wonderful practice if the dealership trained their service personnel to greet the owner of the vehicle right away, help them identify problems, and recommend a fast solution.

After receiving such a quality greeting, the driver will turn over the keys with ease and leave their car behind. He will walk away from the dealership with confidence; expecting the maintenance shop to fix the problem, provide a quality service at a fair price and return the car upon his return, on time. If you own a car, wouldn’t you want the same type of service?

If the auto dealership could not meet the customer’s demand, then the mark for that company is below excellent; especially in the eyes of their drivers. What happens next? The customer will most likely purchase their next car from another dealership, or file a formal complaint. Since bad news spread like wild fire, the driver will tell at least five other people that he had a horrible day because the dealership provided bad service.

A company that builds a business model to satisfy their customers is a great company. But, I’ve noticed that some businesses in the marketplace place their focus on producing the best quality products not providing the best possible customer service. They spend less time and spend less effort in making their customer’s day better. I went to a medium-scale fast food restaurant to grab a quick bite to eat. The employees greeted me when I walked through the door. The floor and tables were clean. When I reached the counter, the cashier had a great smile. She seemed excited and eager to find out what I wanted.

The food was fast and hot; and I love hot French fries! The French fries were not the healthiest product on the menu but the customer service was top notch. While I was eating, the manager stopped by and asked, “Is everything OK?”

Sir, the service that your team has provided is excellent. You have made my day, Better!” I replied while stuffing my face with a few more fries.

Regardless if you own a major corporation or a small business, learning the secrets to making your customers day better. It is vital to your company’s growth. Business owners should design a business model that provides quality products, better services and great prices to help their customers experience the best day possible. The quality that your company uses to manufacture products and provide services should never be greater than the quality you use to serve your customers.

What strategy should your company or small business employ to build better customers? Review your overall business culture from the point where customers see your performance to manufacturing the products or services. After reviewing your business culture, make the necessary improvements. Build a system of operations that adds value, and satisfies your customer desires and needs.

Here are ten steps to help you get started.

1. Conduct surveys to help your organization understand what your customers want

2. Ask for feed back to discover your customer’s level of satisfaction

3. Share the results of your surveys with your entire organization

4. Understand that every customer is important, even those who complain

5. Design a business model that solves consumer problems and build relationships

6. Build a system that produces quality at every point in the production system

7. Provide value to your customers at a fair price, good quality and speedy service

8. Top executives should visit the service area to greet customers

9. Top executives should visit the work floor to monitor their business operation

10. Employees should take pride in knowing that they provide good products and quality services to help others