My husband walked into his HR Department needing one simple thing: a medical directory. (Yes, there was a time you picked a doctor out of a phone book type directory where all of an insurance plan’s doctors were listed. Dinosaurs existed once too. No, those two things did not exist at the same time.) When he asked the nice lady at the desk, she handed him a bundle of directories for all their plans.
My husband replied, “I just need the medical directory.”
“Take them all,” she said.
“I don’t need them all, I only need the medical directory.”
“Take all the books,” she responded.
“Why not keep the others for a time when someone needs just the dental or vision directory, then you can just give them that?”
“You must take all the books,” she replied emphatically.
“I only need one and would end up throwing away the others.”
“Take all the books!” she insisted.
He walked away from that experience dumbfounded. Why would someone give him more than what he actually needed or even wanted? Why, when the company was focused on saving money, would there be such an example of waste? What kind of customer service was that? Why would someone be so rigid in following the rules when it was evident that a better scenario was possible for the employee and the company if a little thought went into the right thing to do? What can we learn from this?
- We all have customers. Just because you aren’t in sales or in customer service, don’t think that you don’t have a customer that you serve. If you don’t realize that, then I would almost certainly guarantee that you aren’t maximizing the service you are providing, and your customers are not happy. Work in IT? Your customers are all the users of technology in the company. Work in procurement? Your customer is production or operations or anyone else you are purchasing on behalf of in the company. Work in HR? Your customers are not just the employees, but also the company, the executives and the other functions in the company whose job it is for you to support. Bottom line: figure out who your customers are.
- Give people what they say they need and what they want. If I come to you knowing that you have the power to provide me x and yet to give me y, you haven’t met my expectations.
- Giving people more than what they need and want can be interpreted as wasteful. Yes, it’s great in your eyes, that you are giving me y, but I won’t use it or want it, when I want x! This is especially critical in times when people are being laid off, money is tight, or value is what is being determined or sought. Now that is not to say that “extras” are all bad. They aren’t. Just ensure that the customer realizes the benefits of the extras and in the end wants them. The key to selling or providing those extras is to make them desirable and something that the customer then includes in their wants.
- No, you don’t know better. Don’t interpret for people what they want. People are usually pretty aware of their desires and needs. For example, I tell you I want x. If you try to override that and tell me that I really want y, you are in effect saying to me, “I know better than you, and am smarter than you.” When someone comes to you for a product or service, how likely do you think they will be to return if they feel that you belittled them? Ever heard the expression, “The customer is always right?” Now, if you know more about the product or have technical expertise that you should share, which the customer doesn’t have, then you should absolutely listen to your customer’s needs first and then enter a two way dialogue. But then when the customer makes an informed decision, provide him/her what s/he wants.
- Sometimes you get one chance to make an impression. What was my husband’s impression of the Benefits Department after this encounter? Rigid, uncaring, illogical, wasteful, and a few other choice adjectives. After that experience, he never went back. His feeling was that she couldn’t help him or worse, wouldn’t help him. What was that person’s job? Benefits support – the department providing benefits and support for the employees!
- THINK! When you are faced with a situation where you can give a customer exactly what they need but it is outside the “norm,” does doing so achieve a better outcome? Don’t stick so rigidly to the rules. Truly great customer support means making appropriate exceptions to ensure customer satisfaction and then to exceed expectations.
As managers, the key is to teach, train and empower your team to help your customer make informed decisions on their purchase/service/product and then provide your customer what they want, to the best of your ability. After all, isn’t that the definition of customer service?
What poor customer experiences have you had, and what did you learn from them?
