Become a Customer Service Legend

In a recent Gallop survey of North American corporations, 55 percent of upper management indicated that they had successful customer-focused programs in place and that they were totally committed to the process. Their employees did not agree; only 36 percent indicated that the process was successful; 54 percent voiced the opinion that top management was not customer-focused.

A customer-driven strategy is in motion when all coworkers in an organization are obsessively striving to solve customer problems and discover their wishes. You probably know people who insist that customers are the driving force of their companies, but there is no visible evidence to back up their words.

The customer is the driver of the learning organization. Too many organizations claim to be learning organizations because their Human Resources Departments (HRD) offer extensive training programs designed to develop the coworkers. In most cases, these training programs are developed without any consideration of the customer. Some HRD staff may believe they are meeting the needs of their internal customers. This may work in theory, but the linkage to the external customer is, at best, weak.

Secrets for Becoming a Customer Service Legend!
1. Redefine Your Product! Redefine your products from the customer’s point of view. If you are looking to purchase a video camera, you are not only buying the camera, you are buying someone’s expertise to help you make a decision.
2. Listen to Customer Complaints! For every one customer who complains, 26 remain silent. Only 9-37% of the customers who do not complain will give a company a second chance; 50-80% of those who do complain will give a company a second chance.
3. Respond Quickly to Customer Needs! It costs five times more to attract a new customer than to keep an old one. A study done by Bain Consulting concluded that a 5% increase in customer retention equals a 25-100% increase in profitability. Train workers to own customer complaints. 4. Cherish the Front-line Coworker! The person in the least respected position in any company is usually the one who has the greatest impact on customer service. In most retail establishments, this person is the sales clerk, the one person who has the future of the organization in his or her hands.
5. Provide Inspired In-touch Leadership! Give your employees the tools to succeed; let them know what is important; and enable them to do what is necessary to solve customer problems and discover their wishes.

Marketing efforts focused exclusively on attracting new customers are missing the mark. The cost of attracting a new customer is five times the cost of keeping existing customers. Recent studies indicate that a 1% increase in the customer retention base will increase profits by 4%.

If you are a manager, take a minute to dump out the contents of your "in" basket on top of your desk. We will bet that 99% of the material deals with strategy, budget, financial returns, capital expenditures and personnel policy matters. This naturally equates to how you spend your time. If you are truly committed to developing legendary service, your focus needs to be on continuously listening to your customers. Federal Express is a great benchmark in customer focus efforts. They have daily customer satisfaction indexes, and more importantly, their bonus programs are directly tied to the customer satisfaction index.