This is a re-print/ repost of an article written by William C. Murray. He is an assistant professor, and has a good take on customer service! Read and enjoy-I may just be posting more of his musings!
Most of this week, I’ve been having conversations with people about customer service. Ok, this week it’s been more like debates about what service is and how to treat customers. You see, there seems to be a group of people who think that customer service is all about giving customers free stuff. That’s it, just giving them free stuff.
As if customers really walk out of a store and say, “Honey! You wouldn’t believe theservice I just received! They gave me a 10% discount – that’s amazing service!” This isn’t service. It’s pricing. There is NO service going on here at all.
Giving amazing service is about listening to your customers, paying attention to how they behave and what they want, then enacting that as well as communicating it to them. My wife went into our local big box bookstore this week to complete an exchange. She didn’t have a receipt, just the unread book given to her as a gift. It costs the bookstore absolutely nothing for this transaction. Zero. Nevertheless, she needed to fill out forms and answer questions. Why? So that the store felt comfortable that they weren’t being ripped off. The unintended consequence is that store is actually saying they naturally distrust their customers. This is a bad process, clearly showing how tied service is to operations.
If you are in the business of dealing with people, how you interact with them and move them through their experiences with you needs to be viewed as service. This became crystal clear tonight when I took the kids to McDonald’s.
Anyone who has been to a newly renovated McDonald’s can appreciate the time invested in designing a restaurant that is attractive for both senior and junior clientele. New colours, patterns, and textures scream out, “This is not the fast food restaurant of the 1980’s.” For this they should be congratulated.
But which architectural genius forgot to include a proper queue system? You see, at these new McDonald’s, people randomly gather en masse in front of the order counter without any indication of how to line up. Is it one line per cashier? One common line up? Really, it is just a mass of people constructing their own ‘line’ waiting for the next cashier to yell out, ‘I can help the next person in line!”
This is not nuclear physics. We are not splitting atoms.
Yet without an established structure that serves customers through the wait, the order, and the pickup, McDonald’s has created disservice. That’s right. Customers stand around confused, bumping into each other, not knowing when to advance or how to pick up their food. The basic food service delivery system fails to acknowledge how customers behave and what they need. At a quick service restaurant, no one wants to feel stupid or awkward. Do the basic operations of your business help customers connect with you or create disharmony?
Related articles
- Worst (Not Best) Buy: Tips for Best Restaurant Customer Service (gourmetmarketing.net)
- Customer service at “stake” at Morton’s Steakhouse? (customerthink.com)
- Confessions of a “Fired” Customer (bobbycalise.wordpress.com)
- That Changed The Way I Brag About You! (chrislocurto.com)
- Trickle-Down Customer Service (knockoutcustomerservice.com)
Thanks so much for republishing my post! It should be said that each of the companies mentioned in this post also have done some good in the service arena. The point here is that great service infuses all aspects of our operations.
Would love to know what you think! Leave a comment here, on the original post (http://theeducationofaprof.blogspot.com/) or share your opinions will be directly on Twitter @williamcmurray
Cheers!
1. You’re right on about the free-bees. You don’t buy customers with discounts anymore. You earn customers with respect and trust. These box store managers don’t realize that even if the product wasn’t theirs, if the dollar exchange is the same it only takes a small accounting adjustment and they just re-sell the product. This is upper management’s fault. They lack experience dealing face to face with customers. 2. If the McDonald’s manager was trained correctly, he/she would take the responsibility to organize the order lines and have cashiers direct the customers. Whatever it takes to make the customers comfortable. This thinking comes from a customer oriented culture and must be taught from the top down. In today’s world, you can get waited on for just a few bucks more. If you notice, these guys aren’t so fast anymore.