Book Summary Preview : Simple Ways To Manage Your Service Customers

The Big Idea

Providing quality after-sales service is always important in a business; it’s what keeps your customers coming back; it’s what makes your business grow; it’s what builds your reputation and credibility. And quality service depends a lot on you as a service person, your employees, and how you manage your service.

“Simple Ways to Manage Your Service Customers” by Promod Batra and Vijay Batra provides simple service management ideas that you can implement without fuss and build an image as an organization committed to standing beside your customers all the time. Basically, it puts premium on paying attention to the small details that are often overlooked by business people, as well as training employees with the right attitudes and skills to provide the best service possible.

1.  Put Yourself In Your Customer’s Shoes

The customer is the boss. He/She pays the salaries and makes the profits. Once you understand this important fact of business, you can only keep doing better and better even during tough times.

Quality service comes when you and your service people can feel for your customers.  A satisfied customer is your best advertisement.

2.  Customer Service – Your Best Sales Tool

Good service results in higher sales. Thus, encourage your staff to make investments in time, attention, and money to provide satisfaction to customers.

Customer satisfaction is affordable and profitable. Affordable because a satisfied customer is free advertising—he/she will tell others about you. Profitable because a satisfied customer means “repeat business.” Recognize your loyal, enthusiastic and profitable customers. Don’t take them for granted.

Good customer service means that you serve every customer who has a problem with a product. A customer may be right or wrong in expecting you to solve their problem. But the important thing is how you handle the problem.

In handling customer problems or complaints, human relations is more important than technical solutions. Sometimes, simply listening to a customer can solve the problem. Giving an irate customer a courteous and warm reception and showing him/her that you are serious in helping with the problem can diminish or remove their irritation.

3.  The First Three Minutes Make All The Difference

The first three minutes after a customer walks into your store, salesroom, workshop or office are very critical. The image in the customer’s mind about you and your business is formed during those three minutes. Pleasant experiences produce favorable images; unpleasant experiences produce unfavorable images.

In the first minute, the customer walks-in a bit unhappy because he has a problem. It can be due to a problem with a machine or the inconvenience of leaving his home or work to get his machine attended to. If you greet him/her warmly and quickly, you have already started creating a good atmosphere. If you don’t greet or acknowledge a customer in the first three minutes, he/she will start to feel neglected.

In the second minute, because you have put your customer in a better mood with your courtesy and attention, he/she is likely to start looking around your place and observe small things. Pleasant, orderly, and efficient things will further improve your image – the layout of the place, the housekeeping, the way people talk to their customers, etc. If all is well, he/she will become happier.

In the third minute, your customer starts thinking that he/she and his/her problem are in good hands. He/She will be more willing to wait and be more predisposed to finding things right.

It would be good to have something “to do” for the customer, such as charts, magazines, books on your products/service, magazines on your business. One dealer had put up Polaroid photographs of each customer pinned to a board. A customer won’t mind looking at these photographs while he/she waits. Another business offers tea and even cigarettes to all customers who come through the door.

As a first step, look for small, small improvements that you can do right away. You can ask a friend to walk in your place of business and give comments on such things as the floor, ceiling, walls, wall charts, boards, workshop equipment, service counter and service staff. What looks neat or sloppy? And act on his/her suggestions.

4. What Is The Customer Looking For?

Your customer is looking to you to deliver on three promises you implicitly committed when you made the sale of your product or service. The first is warmth, sincerity and consideration – which you deliver on when you acknowledge him/her in the first three minutes.

The second is promptness and accuracy in giving him/her the solution to his/her problem. The third is impartiality and fairness. This means that you have to treat all your customers equally, without discriminating on the basis of his looks, clothes, size of purse, and so on. Don’t be extra-nice to people you know better or do more business with you.

5. Cultivate A Good Personality

You can only provide quality service if you are healthy. So maintain your physical and mental health. Maintain a good appearance and make sure your service staff do, too. Ensure good grooming, alertness, and positive attitudes among your employees. This means making sure uniforms look smart and clean, and that the people wearing them are cheerful, well-groomed, and alert.

 

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