Customer Service Training:
Customer Service Course: Customer = Prisoner?
It is probably two or three years ago that I had an interesting situation which reminded me who the boss is when it comes to customer relationships. I had purchased a new notebook computer for my business and a virus protection program from a well known company in that field was pre-installed. Because I didn't like the product I attempted to remove it from the system using the standard de-installation process for Windows. The operative word here is attempted.
The problem was that the standard de-installation simply didn't work. No matter what options I took on the removal process, the program simply would not go away. Even after manually deleting the files and using a registry cleaning program, residue from this program continued to poke their ugly head at me. It stuck like a barnacle to my computer and I felt like the virus program itself had become a virus.
After digging around a bit on the Internet, I found that my plight was not uncommon for this company. For some odd reason the company was of the opinion that once their software was on your system, it had the right to become a permanent resident regardless of what the computer owner felt about the situation. It was only after several hours of an odious manual cleaning of the system registry that I was able to finally get the computer to stop behaving as though the program was still installed.
I am sure that it isn't surprising to say that by the time I was finished with this task I had grown to despise the company that did this and vowed that I would do everything in my power to never, ever, do business with them - either on a personal or a professional level. From my view, their choice to make the software non-removable was an extremely odd one. What were they thinking? If couldn't get rid of the program I would eventually, reluctantly buy a copy?
Reaching back to my training on communication skills, I recalled a method that said "If someone does something you don't understand, you should try to think about what you would have to feel and believe to make you do the same thing." Using this tool I derived two perspectives. Either they were so convinced that their program was such a piece of junk that the only way someone would buy it is if they were forced to, or they had a massive contempt for their customers. In either case, they decided that the customer would become imprisoned by their software.
What does this have to do with Customer Service?
Just like you cannot force someone to love you, you cannot force someone to want to buy your products. You have to give your customer sufficient emotional and intellectual justification for their expenditure. Should you forget that the customer rules the roost in this relationship, they will eventually find their way to an alternate solution. That's how the free market system works!
Because customers are working at both an emotional and logical level, Customer Service has the task of creating an environment that addresses the needs of both realms. Your customer must feel welcomed, wanted, and understood before they are ready to fully embrace the utility that you have to offer.
The next time some vendor tries to shove their product down your throat and an acidic contempt for them begins to swell up inside you, ask yourself if your customers could possibly feel the same way about your organization. If you feel that your product is so bad that you have to create barriers restricting your customers ability to exit the relationship, you should either work to improve your product to the point where customers no longer want to "escape" you or head for the door and find something else to do. If you have contempt for your customers, please save everyone a lot of grief and exit the business.
Source:
Edward Caulfield:
http://www.seriousaboutservice.eu/
Article Content: Customer Service Course
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Customer Service Training:
Customer Service Course: Customer = Prisoner?
