As I speak with business owners across New Providence, the one concern they all seem to have in common is “Do you think we will survive this recession?” My response is always the same “It’s all up to you.” As businesses compete for the consumer’s elusive dollar those that which to survive need an epiphany – The Customer is KING and treating him as such can give your business the competitive advantage needed to make it through these tough times.
Now the revelation that the customer is king is nothing new, many organizations have stumbled on this realization, sometimes the hard way, but the problem is they quickly got up and brushed themselves off like nothing ever happened.
Is your loss in revenue due to the recession or poor customer service? You be the judge:
The other day I went into a fast food restaurant at approximately 11:45 am. There was one cashier on duty and she was serving a teenage young lady who happened to be the only person in line to place an order before my arrival. Now I’m not quite sure as to what the problem was, but the customer seem to be requesting some type of refund because in an annoyed tone the cashier asked “where ya receipt?” “I threw it in the garbage” said the customer but clearly displaying the change in her hand as if this was proof of her claim. “Gimme da $5.00” demanded the cashier. The customer did as she was told. The cashier then exchanged the $5.00 bill for a $10.00 bill and in the next breath said “Next in line! Dismissing the customer with no apology in sight! Do you really believe that the recession is killing this business? Now it’s my turn! I walked up to the cashier; no welcome, no smile, no greeting was extended to me
. I placed my order, she gave me change and walked away already engaged in a conversation with her co-worker. As I waited on my order I could not help but notice the attitude and lack luster performance being displayed by the entire crew. The lady who I presumed was the supervisor (In retrospect I hope she wasn’t) was busy laughing and flirting with two young men who were about to leave the restaurant – apparently her upcoming 28th birthday was more important than my order. The young lady who should have been servicing the drive thru also appeared to intrigued by these young men and the conversation that was taking place, because mid-way through packing the order for the drive thru she became frozen in time as she intently listened in on the conversation. At this point another customer has entered the restaurant, but the disappearance of the cashier has somehow gone unnoticed by the crew (I wonder why). Finally after about four minutes a food handler came from the back (I knew he had to be some type of food handler because he was wearing gloves) noticed the customer in line and asked if he was being served. To make a long story short the customer had waited patently in line for one item – a soft drink. While still wearing his gloves the food handler now cashier rang up the order took the money, and quickly went off to get the soft drink for the customer. At this point the cashier is still nowhere to be found but here is where it get interesting; The food handler/substitute cashier then goes back to his station and without changing his gloves proceeds to handle food! Did I mention that while all of this was going on that the phone rang? Yes the phone rang and for the first time in my life I saw a cordless phone being answered and passed along to two food handlers who accepted the phone and engaged in conversations while packing fries and making sandwiches without ever changing their gloves! But wait there’s more, just when you think it couldn’t get any worse there was a male employee on a ladder between the food station and the pick up counter replacing the air-condition filter and attempting to clean the grill around the vent. Needless to say dirt and dust was beginning to drop on the counter and surrounding areas. At this point I could no longer remain silent and walked out threatening to call the boss, which of course I couldn’t do because of the weekend but here I am talking about this poor customer service experience reinforcing the findings of a customer service study that found that on average 1 dissatisfied customer will tell 11 other people about his/her bad experience. These 11 people in turn will tell 5 more people, bringing the number to 67 people now spreading bad word of mouth publicity about your business. Can your organization withstand this type of negative publicity? Most can’t. So be honest is the recession killing this business or will the cause of death come from untrained staff committing customer service faux pas to many to mention?
Other customer service mistakes that can kill a business:
Promoting your best customer service people to management instead of giving them a raise
Policies and procedures that are not customer friendly
Unfulfilled promises
Giving customers the runaround
Keeping the customer waiting
Wasting customers time
Lack of follow-up
Lack of civility / being rude /
Unfriendly staff
Not answering the phone
Not providing values for money
Management that does not listen to its customer service reps.
Arguing with the customer
Employees who lack product knowledge
Employees who talk with co-workers and ignore the customer
It’s time for every Bahamian to realize that, “There is only one boss. The customer. And he can fire everybody in the company from the chairman on down, simply by spending his money somewhere else”. - Sam Walton
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