For the past couple of years, we have all been affected by the economy, including long-standing companies going out of business or suffering massive layoffs, to people picking and choosing where to spend their dollars.
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I am astonished at the dreadful customer service I run across each and every day. At a time when I believe everyone is in a battle for every dollar earned, owners are putting customer service in the hands of employees who don’t know or care what true customer service is. Let’s listen as our head coach, Mike Haley, explains to shop owners how to solve this problem so that all your customers keep coming back.
You see the advertisements everywhere: “Customer satisfaction is our number one priority” and “We’re not satisfied until you’re satisfied.” Do these companies really instill this idea in the employees, or is it just a slogan? Long ago, when I was writing service, I thought great customer service just meant fixing the vehicle right the first time and having it ready when promised. But when I was purchasing a service for appliances, that was my minimum expectation. It wasn’t until many years and customers later that I realized customer service is all about how I make the customer feel.
Think about the last negative experience you had with a purchase or a service. Typically this is where I would ask you, “How did it make you feel?” But what I want you to think about is “How sincere was the employee who was trying to help you?” Were they sincere? Did you feel they genuinely wanted to help? Did you think they had the autonomy to resolve the issue? Did this employee say what they could do – or more of what they couldn’t do?
The Owner Must Set the Stage
What is the very first step of customer service? It is a message — loud and clear, from the owner to the employees — that we are in the customer-service business and we fix customers’ problems. I didn’t write that we fix cars; we keep their car going, etc. Customers come to us because they have an issue. The job of every employee in our building is to solve the issue for the customer and ensure they have a great experience. For this to happen, your employees must sincerely want to satisfy customers’ needs. You can have the best equipment and the most knowledgeable people, but if they don’t believe the message, it will show in their actions and attitude.
Is it a coincidence when you visit a business with great customer service that it’s clean and inviting, and the employees are approachable and friendly? They’re constantly improving and coming up with new ways to make your experience with them even better. You feel the value of doing business with this company, and you can’t wait to tell your friends and co-workers about your latest experience with them.
Now let’s discuss the three items customers need to feel they have received value.
The Basics
The first item is the basic product or service. You need to provide the customer a reason for them to visit your business.
An example of a basic product or service in our arena would be a basic oil change. The customer would request an oil change and you would perform the oil change, using the correct oil and filter and completing the work in a timely fashion.
The final invoice would match the quoted price, and the customer transaction is concluded. The customer at this point has no feeling of satisfaction or dissatisfaction.
Give Support
The second item required for perceived value is support. Using the example of the basic oil change, this could be a warranty for the parts and labor. Or perform a vehicle inspection and report the results of the inspection to the customer. Provide the customer with contact information if they have any questions or concerns.
At this point the customer feels a little more connected with the shop and service writer. I’m not sure at this point whether he is going to tell all his friends about his experience.
Deliver Enhanced Service
The third and most commonly missed item of perceived value is enhanced service. These are the details that wow the customer: things that surprise them when received as part of the product or service. Continuing with our basic oil change example, these items could include vacuuming the inside of the vehicle or washing the outside. If the vehicle was dropped off, the shop could pick the customer up or deliver the vehicle to the customer’s place of work. A gift bag could be placed in the vehicle.
Maybe the waiting room has Wi-Fi, coffee bar and maybe even a nail salon. How about thank-you calls or a note in the mail? Items that customers don’t receive at other shops and personal attention that leaves the customer with a feeling of satisfaction greater than the basic transaction alone would bring.
Use Bridging to Prevent Problems
What can cause this perceived value to go bad? We call this a ricochet. A ricochet is an annoying experience for the customer that is a breakdown or deficiency in any of the three items. An example of this with the basic oil change would be not having the proper filters or oil in stock. A response to a ricochet is called a frantic recovery. A frantic recovery is the extraordinary employee effort needed to keep a customer satisfied and minimize the damage when a ricochet occurs. A frantic recovery example could be the service writer jumping in his vehicle to go and get the proper filter. Although the customer appreciates the efforts of the employee, this is a short-term approach to providing great customer service.
If you find your business in constant frantic recovery, bridging is needed to alleviate this reaction. Bridging is investigating the root cause of the ricochet to determine how the work process can be improved to prevent future ricochets. Again, it’s no accident that the best companies provide consistent and superior customer service.
So what is the cost of customer service? The cost of poor customer service is obviously lost revenue and car count. But there are also things that are hard to put a cost on: the time, energy and resources spent to correct ricochets; firefighting and asking your employees to perform frantic recoveries every day, rather than focusing on the quality of the customer experience. Everyone in the shop should look at procedures and processes that prevent ricochets and that bridge them when they occur. An old rule of thumb was “Every dollar spent on prevention saves 10 dollars spent on recovery.”
Survey Your Customers
Now we know the three items needed to provide great customer service and how ricochets can break down great customer service, actually costing the shop money and resources. What tool can we use to measure how we are doing? The answer is to survey the customers with a Customer Service Survey.
These surveys should be short yes-or-no questions and a simple scoring scale from one to five. The surveys should not take long to complete, and turning in the responses should be convenient. Most unhappy customers won’t take the time to complain; they will simply try another shop. I also like to change the questions on my surveys to ask questions that are timely and relevant to what is going on with my business. The only way to know what your customers think of your service is to survey them. You won’t know unless you measure it and if you can’t measure it you can’t manage it!
I have a list of 18 popular service survey questions for you to select from and use on your next survey. Simply go to the link at www.ationlinetraining.com/2012-09 and I will be happy to send it to you.
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