The Customer Service Guru Returns from Hiatus

Hello All! 

How was your spring?  My spring took unexpected twists and turns, which imposed a hiatus of sorts.  But I am back, and I am full of stories in my quest for Adventures in Customer Service.

This round has the Guru bragging about great customer service. 

The Scenario:  Wayyyyy back in March, I dropped off a few items of clothing at a new dry cleaner, Dry Cleaning for Less.   I went to the new place, as most customer do, because of an advertisement in the mail promoting a decrease of cost from the other dry cleaners I have tried near my house.  I am by no means loyal; I am ready to jump the boat for a better value or perceived better experience.  I believe most customers are like me in this regard.

I was told the three items would be ready in three days.  No problem, as I was leaving the city for an extended time in one week.   I returned in three days, and none of my items were ready.  I was told to return the next day.  So I did, and two of the three items were ready.  The owner realized my last item had been misplaced in the traffic of the store.   He knew what happened, what the piece was, but he did not have the shirt.  He greatly apologized and asked me to return the next day.

What is poor in this situation were not the individuals that was I was dealing with, they were all pleasant and genuinely sorry, but they were not getting it right.  They did not have my shirt, the only reason I am transacting with them in the first place.

When they did not have my shirt when I returned the final day, I explained that I was leaving for over a month and did not need the shirt, but I did not want it given away either per the typical dry cleaner’s policy of purging unclaimed items in 30 days.  They assured me this would not happen.

I leave and return over a month later.  I deal with another employee, tell her my long story, and within ten minutes she has found my shirt, apologized once again, and gave me two free cleanings for my inconvenience without any prompting from me.  I love this place!

The Solution:

This illustrates why it is paramount not to be just empathetic, caring, and pleasant with your customers.  You also need to deliver whatever your business is promising, be it a service or a product, the Be Right of the CSG phrase.

What the last employee did was right on target with service recovery.  She felt empowered to do something extra to make me a loyal customer.  She did not ask anyone if she could do it, she just did.  That is something to cherish in an employee.

Tips to apply this in your organization:

1.   Ensure your employees have the tools they need to Be Right.  Are your policies and procedures written to help or hinder their efforts to deliver your business’ promise?

2.   Empower employees to go beyond the extra, “I do apologize,” (Major pet peeve of mine, but that is for another blog. J) and DO SOMETHING to make it better.  It can be big or small, but do something.  Loyalty is a precious thing from a customer.  It guarantees future revenue and growth.

Until next time, be good to yourselves and your customers.

Can an Unhappy employee provide Happy service?

In the corporate world the word Happy makes people uncomfortable.  Executives and managers are more comfortable with terms like employee satisfaction, or employee engagement.  It seems to defluffy the experienced emotion, but it really boils down to the Happiness factor of your employees.  Are they Happy enough to provide your customers or clients outstanding service no matter what?  Do they have the ‘engagement level’, or as I like to say enough Internal Happiness, let go of their personal and professional challenges, for even a few hours, and focus only on the immediate customer?

THE SITUATION:  The Customer Guru has been out of circulation as I was traveling.  I travel quite a bit, so I engage frequently with all sorts of hospitality service providers.

I rented a car from Hertz at the Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport on Saturday, February 5^th.  We had been in Phoenix a few days, but reserved a car for the final portion of our trip.   Purposely, we went late in the evening, after 9pm, for pick-up to avoid a long line.  That was a missed strategy, as when we arrived there was a long line of at least 20 customers and at first only 2 agents to assist this large group.   From the looks on the employee faces, they did not look like engaged, or happy employees.  That is understandable as there were many people, and it was late at night.  Everyone was tired.

At first ten, and then 20 minutes, of the wait more agents came on line.  This is a good thing.  The line is moving faster, customers seem to be moving quickly through the car rental transaction.  If memory serves me four or five agents ended up on the line.

It is our turn.  Our agent was one of the unhappiest employees I have ever encountered in the service industry.  His face displayed no sign of welcome, hospitality, or even ambivalence.  It was a face of “This place sucks, and I don’t want to be here.”  Renting a car is not a painful transaction, but this employee’s attitude seemed like every transaction or question we asked was a bother to him.  We had difficulty understanding him, as he was mumbling his words and speaking quickly. 

Funny enough, I was very happy with the car, but I cannot shake the feeling this employee left me about the Hertz organization.  As a leader that is something you should really lose sleep over.  If I doubt your service, then I don’t need much of a push to go to your competitor.

THE CUSTOMER SERVICE GURU SOLUTION:  There could be many solutions.

1.  My favorite is a Proactive Solution.  My guess is my agent felt like no one cared what he was doing or about him as a individual.

Your managers on duty should not allow the environment on the line degrade to this level.  They should know every employee’s general demeanor, i.e. happiness level, at the beginning of their shift.  Throughout the shift they should be encouraging employees, offering praise, and if it is a rush, be out there working the line.   DO NOT HIDE IN YOUR OFFICE OR CUBICLE!

Reactive Solutions involve the shift manager or supervisor.

2. Immediately, pull the employee aside and simple ask if they are OK.  If the employee says yes, then be clear his behavior is unacceptable, but be kind.  For example, “The way you worked with that customer everything does not seem OK.  It’s not like you.  I know you are usually much more outgoing and caring than that.”

3. If this is a chronic problem with this employee, then you have made a bad hire and need to respectfully and legally find a way to remove this person from a frontline position.  You are literally losing revenue due to this person’s unconscious actions.

4.  If it is an isolated incident, and they are having a bad day or a temporary personal issue, there are choices to make.   Choices include sending them home for the day so they can work through their issue, taking them off line for a short break so they can gather themselves, or other creative solutions. 

As a leader, you must evaluate each choice's risks and balance having a fair policy to all your employees.  If you let someone go home, you better have an answer when someone asks, “John got to go home, but not me.  That is not fair.”   This goes to having trust between you and your staff.  But that is an article for another day.