Customer Care is a simple and powerful idea. No one seriously disputes that if you treat your customers well they will be pleased, more likely to use your service again and more likely to tell a friend. So why is it so difficult to get staff to do it?.
Why did the plumber not turn up when I had stayed in all morning and why did he not ring to say he was not coming? Why did the man who agreed to put up a new fence not return my calls? Why do I have to keep chasing the estate agent to find out if they have had any viewings and what the feedback was?. When we signed up with them they said they would provide weekly updates and feedback after every visit. And why when I get cross about it do they say things like” we lost your mobile number” or” the young women dealing with your property has left”?
You would think that with redundancies, rising unemployment and the general economic climate people would try harder. These people were not working for some large impersonal bureaucracy or some distant foreign call centre they were working for small local companies or are self employed they would presumably want me to recommend them to others. Contrast this experience with that of going to my local hair dresser. Everyone here is a regular, a repeat customer and no wonder, you make an appointment and if you turn up on time there is no waiting, they are very friendly, they know who to refer to by their first name and who by their surname. These are young women but most of their customers are older women or pensioners, they don’t talk to each other they talk to their customer and they don’t talk about what they did at the weekend or last night they talk about what they know their customer is interested, usually children and grand children, sometimes pets occasionally husbands and yes holidays. I don’t think the young woman who runs the place or her three staff have staff meetings where they discuss customer care nor do I think staff are sent on a customer care two day training courses. I do think they recruited a certain type of person, someone who was comfortable talking to older people about their grand children, someone who didn’t need to be told to help someone climb the stairs or help them get their coat on and off.
Is customer care innate is that why some people do it naturally and why some just don’t get it at all? Is it more to do with the type of person you are? If your friends describe you as someone they can depend on , reliable, someone who doesn’t need constant reminding of what they promised to do, someone who doesn’t cancel or let you down at the last minute as opposed to someone who is sorry they forgot or haven’t got round to it yet. This type of person doesn’t need to learn about customer care the way they treat people whether at home or work means they do it without having to think about it.
We all have friends whose company we enjoy, who have good intentions but who can’t be relied on. Something else always comes up in their busy lives, their initial enthusiasm disappears as the practicalities intrude. This same behaviour at work means promises and commitments are made but put off and not followed through. Customer care becomes being polite, being sympathetic being agreeable and getting rid of the customer as quickly as possible so they can get on with their work.