By 
One of the biggest reasons for business decline and failure that I see continually in my consulting practice, and as a business client, is the almost universal and precipitous decline in the quality of customer service. Substantially improving the quality of your company’s customer service was one of the recommendations in my article series, Maintaining Sales Revenue in the Great Recession. That recommendation clearly struck a chord because readers quickly validated it with several “I’ll never shop there again” comments with stories of mistreatment belonging to the corporate Hall of Shame.
Role reversal: who serves whom?
The concept of serving the customer has degenerated beyond benign neglect to where, in many cases, the customer is now expected to express appreciation for allowing them to patronize the business. You may think my characterization is a bit extreme, so I’ll illustrate with some recent examples.
Typical ‘Hall of Shame’ nominees
auto parts stores – I was visiting my mother in Florida and needed an auto part. There were two nationally known stores nearby that probably had the part I needed, so I set out to spend some money.
Keep in mind that my position in a typical sales process made me the perfect prospect. My purchase decision was already made. I was going to spend some money. The only question was where I would open my wallet.
I couldn’t find the part I needed at the first store, so I sought help. There were several idle employees in animated conversation behind the counter, so I moved in their direction and waited for them to acknowledge me. I stood next to them for a moment, but there was absolutely no pause in their conversation; not a single employee looked me in the eye or acknowledged my presence even though he was only inches away.
I refuse to spend money on establishments that treat their customers like this, so I walked out the door (no one made any attempt to stop me) and reached out to the competition, anticipating a better experience.
I found the part I needed at the second store and went to the counter to pay for my item. I watched the staff’s interaction with customers with professional interest as I waited my turn in line. It was immediately apparent that the only employee behind the checkout counter was simply standing at the register, passively waiting for the customer to tell him what to do.
To initiate the transaction, the customer would say something like “I would like to purchase this item.” In response to the prompt, the clerk wordlessly scanned the barcode and announced the total price. The customer would then give the clerk some cash and the clerk would silently enter the given amount into the register, count out the change from the drawer (as displayed by the machine), and then dump out the register receipt, currency change, and bills. in the client’s outstretched hand.
In some cases, the coins quickly slide off the paper receipt and fall to the ground. The nervous and embarrassed customer would pick up the coins (as if the poor change was his fault), thank the clerk, and hurried out of the store. The clerk always responded with “You’re welcome,” graciously accepting thanks for taking the trouble to serve the customer.
When it was my turn, I placed my item on the counter and waited to be greeted, hoping they would at least ask if I had found what I needed. Instead, the clerk just looked at me, waiting for me to make the first move. Resisting the urge to start the conversation, I politely returned his gaze and waited for him to start.
Unfortunately, my tactic immediately began a test of wills. Wordlessly, he scanned the barcode and announced the total, all the while looking at me defiantly. I handed her a bill and she gave me my change without a word, tossing the receipt, coins and bills into my hand in such a way that I had to use both hands to catch the second roll, and pointedly turned to the next customer. in line. That customer, not wanting to put up with what he had just received, immediately greeted the clerk and obediently began to play second fiddle.
The restaurant – In another example, I was traveling over the Christmas holidays and stopped to get off the road for a leisurely dinner at a nationally known chain of country food restaurants that I was a fan of. The experience began when the receptionist seated us and placed a registration postcard for the company’s new customer loyalty program on the table. He made sure we knew it was very important to sign up for this program when he left.
Our server arrived to take our order, introduced herself, and immediately mentioned how important it was for us to sign up for their new customer loyalty program. I thanked our server for pointing us to the program and we proceeded to order.
After placing the order, I studied the card and decided not to participate, because it seemed to be mostly a method of collecting a lot of contact information with very little reward involved.
When our order arrived, our server handed out plates and then mentioned that he noticed we hadn’t filled out the postcard to sign up for the customer loyalty program, again emphasizing that it was very important that we do that. Again I thanked him for letting me know, but told him that I had decided not to participate. It was clear my answer didn’t sit well with him when he left.
The server handed over the check after our meal, this time clearly stating that we needed to fill out the customer loyalty postcard before we left. As you can imagine, at this point I had no intention of completing that card for any reason. This time his insistence affected the tip.
I headed to the gift shop to pay for my food. Unbelievably, while cashing the check, the cashier told me that she needed my full customer loyalty card, implying that it was somehow related to the completion of the sale. Thoroughly annoyed at this point, I replied that after being told five times (count them, five!) to fill out that card, I had heard everything I wanted to hear about it. All I wanted to do was pay for my food and leave.
Unbelievably, the cashier made an angry face and replied, “What’s wrong, you don’t like eating at (our restaurant)?” In just one visit, such poor customer service destroyed the memory of many years of repeat patronage. I have not patronized that chain since.
The employer of a business, regardless of whether that employer is called a patient, client, or customer, is the person who puts food on the owner’s table, provides his house, his boat, sends his children to college, pays his employees and keeps you in business. Simply put, bosses generate 100% of a company’s revenue and can choose where to open their wallets and spend their money. However, in so many cases today the employer is treated as a second class citizen; ignored and harassed with hard sells and negative “special offers” options (in which you automatically agree to some recurring charge as a condition of the sale unless you specifically make the effort to opt out) as in the example below.
computer software company – I recently had problems with the negative option special offer the last time I renewed my PC’s antivirus software, and found that after completing the sale (and carefully reading the receipt) my credit card would automatically be charged each year for a renewal subscription unless I manually opted out.
This sales condition was never explained during the sales process (surprise, surprise), otherwise I would never have agreed to automatic charges to my card indefinitely. Unsurprisingly with such a shady practice, opting out wasn’t easy. Instead of providing a direct link to quickly perform this task, the instructions directed me to the company’s home page with vague instructions on how to navigate their site to find opt-out instructions. After reviewing various sitelinks, I finally found a paragraph of text directing me to send an email with a specific message to their “unsubscribe” email account. Ridiculous! The sole purpose of their method of doing business was to make it difficult for me to force them to stop charging my credit card.
The bottom line
Customers are the lifeblood of any business. He wants them to come back and he wants them to tell their friends so they can come back too. They are not “pains,” they are not interruptions to your work, and they are not something to be avoided at all costs.
Yet in so many cases, the experience I’ve described now seems to be the norm in customer relationships, be it business-to-business or at the retail location. Not sure that’s true? In part 2, I’ll share how to love your customers and a test to see if you’re playing second fiddle to the market to find out if your business is playing.