Peter Bregman’s recent Harvard Business blog, “How to Fly Over Recessionary Obstacles” inspired me to write this blog post. Peter notes,
“It turns out that your recovery might be as simple as being nice to your customers.”
I don’t know about you, but I am especially selective with where I spend my money right now. I just switched my home and auto insurance provider to a different company as a result of poor customer service. I tried to contact my insurance provider three times to purchase more insurance – I wanted to spend MORE money with them and it was laborious!
Frustrated and annoyed, I deemed my original insurance company unfit to do business with and went elsewhere. I switch insurance companies at the beginning of the month.
Customer Service Nugget #1:
Make it really easy for customers to spend money with you – to pay you.
Especially during a recession, you would think companies would be fighting tooth and nail to keep customers, to satisfy customers, to allow customers to spend money! So, there in lies the questions…
“What is keeping you from giving your customers great service?”
“What changes do you need to make to deliver great customer service?”
Companies that answer these questions and take action to change will be well positioned to pull away from competitors and capitalize on the recession recovery. Customers will stay with or switch to companies that provide great customer experiences.
I would also acknowledge that there isn’t a company out there that doesn’t think giving great customer service is important. If that’s the case, what is keeping these companies from ‘thinking’ about customer service to ‘acting’ to understand their customers’ experience and consciously choosing to prioritize improving the customer experience? Is it money? Is it limited resources? Is it leadership incompetency? It’s hard to say really. I would ask the leaders of these companies how many times they have made a purchasing decision based on their customer experience. Customers simply want be treated well and don’t want it to be difficult to do business with the companies they choose to spend money with.
{ 1 comment… read it below or add one }
Nice post!
I always find it interesting, that if you tell someone at a company that customer service is important, they will roll their eyes at you, as if you are stating the most obvious fact in the world (which you are) but then you look at their customer service and it’s atrocious!
I guess it’s the same with exercise. Everyone knows what they should be doing, but they just don’t do it!