Estimated reading time: 3 minutes

It's Only Common Sense: "Intentional" Customer Service

Editor's Note: To listen to Dan's weekly column, as you've always done in the past, click here. For the written transcript, keep reading...“There is so much poor customer service these days that it’s not that hard to stand out as a great customer service provider.” Wow, what a statement! I read this in a new book called Delight your Customers, written by customer service guru Steve Curtin. He outlines all the things it takes to deliver great customer service--service that will delight your customers.

Great customer service can not only be rewarding financially, but it can also be great fun. After all, what's more fun than making someone happy?

This book is really about those in the service sector: Hotels, restaurants, retail, and so on. In fact, Curtin spent 20 years with Marriott International. The book is geared more toward companies delivering goods and services to the public rather than the business-to-business sector. But, so what? In just about all cases, the same principles that apply to a hotel’s customer service can apply to our business.

Certainly the statement “There is so much poor customer service these days that it’s not that hard to stand out as a great customer service provider,” can apply more to our business than the hotel business. Whether we like it or not, we are not considered a user-friendly industry. In many cases, our customers have compared dealing with PCB shops to dealing with the Department of Motor Vehicles. I don’t know about you, but in my state the DMV has become a nicer and friendlier place to go than it used to be, so now we’re out there on our own.

If you consider our industry average of 83% on time and 83% quality (numbers don’t lie), we could use some help in the customer service department, don’t you think?

I know several very good and successful PCB vendors who have based their success directly on how they treat their customers (no big surprise there). In fact, anyone who knows anything about customer service knows that great relationships are forged in adversity. It’s not the fact that you had a problem that makes you a good or bad company, but it’s how you handle that problem that can make you a great company and help you develop customers for life.

In his book, Curtin differentiates between job function and job essence. He says, “Job function refers to the duties or tasks associated with a job role. Job essence is the most critical aspect--the highest priority--or every service employee’s job role. For most service industry employees, their highest priority is to create a promoter.”

He goes on to define a promoter as “A customer who is less price-sensitive, has higher repurchase rates, and is responsible for 80 to 90 percent of the positive word of mouth about a company or brand.”

Sounds to me like just the kind of customers we would love to create, doesn’t it?

He then goes on to list seven ways to raise customer service from ordinary to extraordinary:

1. Express genuine interest.
2. Offer sincere and specific compliments.
3. Share unique knowledge.
4. Convey authentic enthusiasm.
5. Use appropriate humor.
6. Provide pleasant surprises.
7. Deliver service heroics.

Take a moment and think of the great customer service and salespeople you've encountered in your career, both in and out of our industry--didn’t they all have these attributes? Didn’t they all touch on each part of the above list?

We all need to work conspicuously at doing these things on a daily basis. This list should become part of our culture, second nature. It has to start at the top.

It has to start with the company president or owner; you have to show the rest of your company how to do this. You have to not only believe that great customer service will help your company, but you must also exemplify it. You must "walk the talk."

Here are my own seven guidelines to developing a great customer service culture in your company:

1. Always promote the customer and insist that your team does the same.
2. Never tear down a customer.
3. Never let your team tear down a customer.
4. Always try to find ways to delight your customers.
5. Always encourage your team to find ways to delight your customers.
6. Reward your team for delighting your customers.
7. Lead brainstorming sessions on how to delight your customers.

Do whatever it takes to make sure that everyone in your organization knows that without the customer there's no company...it’s only common sense.