Customer Service That “Wows”

0
92

Share on LinkedIn

Have you ever had a cus­tomer ser­vice expe­ri­ence that left you say­ing “wow”?

The other day, I had one of those “wow” expe­ri­ences. I was stay­ing at a hotel in Hol­ly­wood for work. The only way to park was through valet. The atten­dant asked me for my name and wrote it on a tag to hang from my rear view mir­ror. I gath­ered my lug­gage from the car and walked into the hotel. I made my way to the recep­tion desk and as I approached the counter, the employee behind the desk said, Sarah? I was blown away! I even said, “Wow! How impressive!”

Work­ing in the cus­tomer ser­vice indus­try has made me extremely sen­si­tive to ser­vice issues. The employee that knew my name wowed me. So how do you go about cre­at­ing expe­ri­ences that wow customers?

Set Your Ser­vice Apart from the Crowd

Some­times, it’s the lit­tle details that can set ser­vice apart from the com­pe­ti­tion. Think about what touches you can add to the cus­tomer experience.

For exam­ple, the restau­rant Roy’s has this con­cept mas­tered. They include per­sonal mes­sages in their menu when cus­tomers cel­e­brate spe­cial occa­sions, they pull chairs out for guests to be seated, and they refold cus­tomers’ nap­kins when they step away from the table. These ges­tures may be small, but when I had the plea­sure to dine at Roy’s, I noticed their effort! To learn more about the lit­tle touches that can boost the cus­tomer expe­ri­ence, read this blog post.

Exceed Expec­ta­tions and Build Oppor­tu­ni­ties for Repeat Business

Keep in mind, a pos­i­tive cus­tomer expe­ri­ence can lead to repeat busi­ness. Employ­ees need to be pre­pared to answer and respond to cus­tomer ques­tions and requests with grace and eager­ness to serve. James Barnes, author of Secrets of Cus­tomer Rela­tion­ship Man­age­ment, says, “A typ­i­cal busi­ness only hears from 4% of its dis­sat­is­fied customers—the other 96% leave, 91% for good.”

Set the prece­dent with employ­ees and cus­tomers that feed­back is appre­ci­ated, both pos­i­tive and neg­a­tive. If you’re not hear­ing feed­back, I promise some­one is. It’s more ben­e­fi­cial to hear the com­plaints, so you have a chance to respond both ver­bally and through improve­ments in ser­vice standards.

Offer Con­sis­tent Ser­vice by Imple­ment­ing Training

If ser­vice is truly a pri­or­ity, ensure you pro­vide con­sis­tent ser­vice across all depart­ments. Imag­ine what it would be like to walk into that same hotel men­tioned at the begin­ning of this post, expe­ri­ence supe­rior ser­vice at the front desk, make my way to the restau­rant to grab a quick bite to eat, and be treated like an impo­si­tion rather than an oppor­tu­nity to serve. My over­all impres­sion of the com­pany would plum­met. Remem­ber, all it takes is one bad expe­ri­ence to taint a customer’s impres­sion of a company.

So how do you pro­vide con­sis­tent ser­vice? Train employ­ees! Cus­tomer ser­vice train­ing teaches employ­ees how to com­mu­ni­cate pos­i­tively and pro­fes­sion­ally with cus­tomers. If every­one is on the same page, you can ensure con­sis­tent ser­vice across every department.

Out­line the Impor­tance of “Wow” Cus­tomer Service

Some­times it’s hard for employ­ees to see how the ser­vice they offer affects cus­tomers. Play a lit­tle game with your employ­ees and have them keep track of cus­tomer ser­vice expe­ri­ences they’ve encoun­tered good and bad. Once they start to pay atten­tion to the way dif­fer­ent styles of ser­vice affect them, they will start to under­stand why the way they treat cus­tomers is important.

Photo cour­tesy of Camdiluv

Republished with author's permission from original post.

ADD YOUR COMMENT

Please use comments to add value to the discussion. Maximum one link to an educational blog post or article. We will NOT PUBLISH brief comments like "good post," comments that mainly promote links, or comments with links to companies, products, or services.

Please enter your comment!
Please enter your name here