Customer Service Training:
Is the Customer Really First?
Cesar Ritz, a renowned hotelier of the twentieth century, is noted with saying "the customer is never wrong." This philosophy created the mindset that the customer is the first priority in customer services. However, the level of service provided to consumers today has drastically deteriorated since his time... to the extent that many frontline employees in hotels, banks, auto dealerships, grocery stores and healthcare organizations view their customers as second-class citizens who are rarely right, especially when a problem arises.
With this in mind, here are five points to contemplate in determining whether the customer is really viewed as the first priority in customer services within your organization, or a distant second or third place.
#1 - Employee Selection Process. If the customer is truly first, establish a process ensuring only the brightest, most talented and skilled employees are selected to deliver your customer services. The "warm body" syndrome cannot exist within your organization.
#2 - Ease of Business Interaction with the Customer. If the customer is truly first, implement new technology, systems or processes to make it easier for customers to conduct business with you. Person-to-person interaction would always trump the impersonal, mechanical and endless voice mail prompts typically used today as a substitute for service. Customers want choices but they also want to be a priority in customer services.
#3 - Customer First Service Philosophy. If the customer is truly first, your customer services philosophy (vision statement, mission statement and service standards) would clearly reflect it. Your service philosophy must be woven into the fabric of the organization; employees wouldn't know it any other way.
#4 - Senior Leadership Engaged in Service Excellence. If the customer is truly first, then the CEO and senior leaders must be champions of the customer services philosophy. They must be role models who reflect the characteristics of service excellence within your organization. As a result, they would hold everyone within the organization accountable for living and upholding the highest levels of service possible.
# 5 - Empower Employees. If the customer is truly first, the main focus of every employee must be to deliver a customer services experience that is guaranteed to create high customer loyalty. This means when a problem or challenge arises, employees are properly trained, empowered and comfortable making decisions to immediately resolve any issue. Employees must be able to satisfy the customer without the approval of a manager. Employees must be the first point of contact for handling the majority of customer issues.
Bottom-line, you eat an elephant one bite at a time. Work on those barriers that are standing in the way of customer services excellence, one thing at a time. If you try to do too much at one time, you will quickly burn out and quit.
Theo Gilbert-Jameson:
http://ezinearticles.com/?Is-the-Customer-Really-First?&id=2838701
Article Content: Customer Services
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