The Customer Bottom Line
Everything considered, what is the bottom line principle of a real customer focus?
Customer satisfaction is so important in the retention and growth of a customer base. Customer comments via social media have become such a powerful tool that can affect an organization, either positively or negatively, with amazing speed!
I think the bottom line is you have to care. Care not only about the company you work for and it's success but the customers and their satisfaction. I strongly believe if you take pride in your company and how it is represented great customer service will follow. Always be willing to work hard, listen and be compassionate to individuals and their issues. Also, be willing to admit that not every customer is the right customer for your company. I think if a lot of people would do away with the "customer is always right" attitude it would improve their customer service. I've worked for companies who throw their employees under the bus to make a customer happy because they run their company by "the customer is always right" mentality and all this has gotten them is unhappy employees and a high turn over rate and both of those directly affect customer service and retention.
Keep them happy and give them an experience that will keep them coming back.
Identify the customers, wants, needs, and expectations, understand the wants, needs and expectations and act on them. Happy customers leads to a profitable school!
With everything being considered I feel that the bottom line principle of real customer focus is never stop improving. I feel the research illustrates that if your organization is always striving to accomplish better products and services to your client and trying to improve their experience that they will be retained at higher rate and lead to profitability within your organization.
Listen to the customer and really make changes where they are needed. Don't just listen and make no effort to fix a problem.
Julie,
Thanks for your comments. I agree that trust is at the core of customer-first service. And as you note, even though you may not be able to honor a customer's request, if the customer knows you mean well and care about the service relationship, trust remains in place.
Jay Hollowell
The bottom line of customer focus is building trust and having the right attitude. Students, clients and customers will return even if the service wasn't at its best if they trust the staff. Also, staff who have bad attitudes will create distrust and steer students, clients and customers away.
Hi Jo-Anna,
I might add that, as you noted, we can go beyond a customer's expectations only if we know what the expectations are in the first place. It is easy to stop at the minimum. In that sense, every organization provides some level of customer service, though in some cases - poor. It's when we go a little beyond - a customized little enhancement that fits the customer and is not expected. It makes the whole customer service process more personal and enjoyable!
Jay Hollowell
I stride for meeting and exceeding the customers expectations. In a questionnaire we ask what quality is. 2 question is what they expect from us. When they want to know why we ask. IT is to exceed your expectations. And that can only happen when we know where/what that is for them. It is a measure of good customer service.
I would appreciate another point of view!
First, making sure that the customer is satisfied.
Second, the product is got to evolve over time to keep the customer.
The customer is always first. Keeping them happy and satisfied.
I think it's more that we do the right thing to have referrals that are most important to grow our business.
James,
Good points. I might even further contend that if we eliminate the "dissatisfiers," we're then at point zero, or neutral. It's when we do a little extra - when a customer service action is unexpected, timely and on-target - do we accomplish customer-first service. You're right, things that can be easily fixed but left unresolved - shame on us! Resolution of such a "dissatisfier" should be the minimum expectation.
Jay Hollowell
A "real" customer focus is putting your money where your mouth is! It does no one any good to "say" that we have a real customer focus when obvious customer dissatisfiers exist that are easily corrected, yet the responsible ignores the problem. As an example, if a student has a log-in issue that should be solved immediately takes the responsible IT staff two weeks to resolve the problem, we can "say" all day, even post signs, that our students are number one - in this case, it's meaningless. Several similar issues like this created by a micromanaging headquarters will eventually convince the students that they are only sources of revenue rather than the number one customers they ought to be. Not good!!
The real bottom line focus is to provide goods and/or services with the customer's best interests in mind. Especially in a educational institution, both for-profit and non-profit schools need to realize that the student is the customer and they have choices. They can choose to attend your school or another school, but the difference can be the student-focused, caring attitude they see/feel when they contact your school. Schools would be in a lot less trouble and have to deal with a lot less regulation if they would just to what's right for the student. It's a student-focused approach which makes schools successful. Do the right thing all the time.
The bottom line principle of a real customer focus is to produce the right customer. With the right customer, your buisness will thrive. Once the right customer is satisfied with the overall service/product, the customer will most likely be retained for a long period of time.
The bottom line principle of a real customer focus is to produce the right customer. With the right customer, your buisness will thrive. Once the right customer is satisfied with the overall service/product, the customer will most likely be retained for a long period of time.
In my field keeping the customer happy is great but understanding what the customer is needing or wanting is the focus. We need to be able to interpret what the customer is asking for to what we can truly do for them. Some customers want to have a certain service done that just isn't possible. Being honest and working with the customer to give them the best service for them is our real customer focus.
