THE CHANGING LANDSCAPE

OF CUSTOMER SERVICE

By: Dr. Ainsley Deer, MSc,CEO/Senior Consultant,Training Dynamics & Consultants Ltd

In markets where you must compete to attract and retain customers, especially where there is saturation, customer satisfaction takes on enormous proportions in the change process. In other words, the difference between success and failure is a satisfied customer. If the external customers are dissatisfied, they will find other providers of goods and services. If your employees, your internal customers, are unhappy,they will give poor service (or products) or leave. It is for these reasons that it is crucially important to monitor the requirements of both your external and internal customers through surveys and then let the results drive the change process to satisfy them.

When you are in business, criticism counts. You must cherish the customers who complain because they tell you what to change. And if you have not realized it already, the customers are always right if they believe your product is inferior and that belief is valid even if tests prove otherwise. I was once out with a friend at a popular eating spot. My friend, who ordered oxtail, told the proprietor that the oxtail was stale. The proprietor’s response was that it was a fresh pot of oxtail he put on that said evening to which my friend replied “Yes, a fresh pot of stale oxtail” Needless to say, we have not revisited that spot. The same holds true for your internal customers who, incidentally, for fear of reprisals and victimisation, don’t always complain. But they will let their voices be heard through disloyalty, pilferage, lack of care for your equipment, and sabotage.

Employees can be notoriously uncommunicative. To counteract this, conduct frequent surveys through the use of questionnaires, focus groups and interviews to find out how they feel.

A popular local car dealer did not ask me how I felt about having to take my car to them.

For a simple problem over a twelve-month period. The pre-sale service was great; the post sale service was a nightmare. I experienced all the classical problems over that twelve-month period namely: Slow and poor repair, billing problems, bad sales service, an inefficient installation. The only missing ingredient was faulty equipment and I am not sure that, too, was not a factor, but that is something a little more difficult to prove.