F L Brown - Technology Coach - Web Design and Blogs
Customer Service Counts
Customer Service Counts. Now this is a short story that I am going to enjoy telling...
You know those special evenings out, how perfect you like them to be and how wonderful they sometimes are. It starts with the search for the little black dress and the matching shoes. A little pain is then suffered as you search for the tights. If you have long legs height often becomes large or extra large on the packaging. Seems tall or large Lycra stretches both ways. Not great for your ego when you're told it's great to be tall and slim and your uncomfortable with large or extra large. Thankfully after the tights experience you can then pop to the nail bar and the hairdresser's for some pampering. At the hairdresser you are sure you are going to find some way to mention where you are going at every opportunity. Guess that's word of mouth marketing. A night out in London always sounds amazing. If you top it with a restaurant in the same class as the Oxo Tower you just know it is going to be something special, especially if you thought the experience was amazing last time. So you know you look fantastic and he is dressed appropriately, smells fresh and gorgeous and is ready to entertain and delight you. Yes it's that type of evening. That type of evening that is rare, especially after a few years of marriage and three kids. It is of course essential that the restaurant play its part. A restaurant like the Oxo Tower is expensive, but the service it is that you are paying for. You know when you arrive that you will be treated amazingly. You know they as well as him will be focused on you and your needs. He will feel the same. He'll love the attention too. The food will be presented to perfection, a good selection with an expensive price tag. This is by no means a normal night out. You are no longer the highflying young yuppie. You are the married couple on a special evening out who have left the kids at home with the sitter. This is a very rare treat reserved for very special occasions. Presented with the menu you feel overwhelmed with the amazing selection. You ask for guidance on your food and wine choice and feel happy with the reply. You are going to be happy with whatever you choose. The menu has been designed, that way and the staff well chosen and trained to perfection. They understand their role in your night out. Not intrusive but helpful. The Oxo Tower has one of the most amazing views of London, and if you book your table early, and ask, you may just have an amazing table. If you fail to book and still manage to get a table it will be a great dining experience. This type of restaurant pays attention to every detail and the food is wonderful.
We shouldn't forget that we don't need to travel to London to have the same experience. I haven't been to all the select restaurants, but here are a few restaurants that offer fine cuisine in Bedfordshire and I bet there are some near you too:;
But that's not the end of the story...
On another occasion I find myself driving around the M25 to meet a friend. We normally meet and go for coffee in Borders, but this day was different. My mood was not great. The news is full of the British Airways pilot hero and I can't help think about an article I read in a British Airways flight magazine some years back that suggested that female business executives feel empowered if they wear the most amazing underwear. I'm sure it must have had an advertisement for some underwear somewhere on the same page. It's funny how some advertisements hidden in articles stick with you and distract you from the more important message of another article. I guess it was an enlightening article. I hadn't really thought of underwear as being anything other than a necessity, pretty and sometimes sexy. I noted that the pilot is said to be handsome by the presenter on the radio. Yet I didn't miss the point that his team had worked together and offered fantastic customer service on behalf of British Airways not to mention they saved lives, which is always a great thing. Great stuff!
It’s always interesting to approach a store that has had a refit. This means it is investing for their customers. You just know the whole experience is going to be better than before. It will be cleaner, brighter, and fresher, with an almost guaranteed new layout. This store had moved it restaurant from a small corner, to a new more prominent position at the front of the store. Now you were greeted with grand stairs and a hostess. You almost don't notice the area aimed for those without families on the lower floor that looks more like a trendy sushi bar as you are ushered upstairs to an area with round and curved eating areas with walls decorated with modern images of healthy fruit and vegetables. A lift still available if you need it. You climb the stairs to be greeted once more with a smile and you are taken to a table. You are not used to this type of service in the high street store. You are seated and presented with a glossy menu designed to impress. A wide selection of food and beverage choices is contained within. Before you know it, you have spent more than you would have in the old restaurant. When your soup arrives in a modern low and wide white bowl decorated with fresh herbs and what looks like swirls of cream, you feel you've been given a treat not a bowl of soup. When the hot chocolates arrives and you taste the divine quality chocolate warmed in a cup, you know it's no longer a case of you may come back, you want to come back.
When you arrive home the experience is so out of the ordinary that the memory lingers. The soup tasted better than any you have had before. At the restaurant you enjoyed the soup. You wonder if you can buy some for home. Then you remember you forgot the underwear and you are thankful you have an excuse rather than a need to go shopping again. You would go back anyway because you enjoyed the experience. It isn’t that the product has changed much; it's just the experience that’s become great.
There is a local curry restaurant we have been using for delivery for a few years now. We love the service. We recognise the guys who deliver. They know our order, our preferred meals. At Christmas they bring chocolates with the order, at New Year they brig a calendar. It’s a nice touch. If we order a special meal, the manager delivers it himself. Now that's what we call great customer service. We recommend Spice to the people who ask who we get our curry delivered by. A small local restaurant that has customer service that is worth talking about.
It's that type of customer service that counts and brings back customers again and again until they get tempted by a better offer. When competitors produce something better, re-invent the wheel, put more in, and give the customer just what they want. That's competition! It's hard work enjoy it! The pay-off being the customer loves the results.
How’s your customer service? Have you reinvented yourself, your team and your environment recently? If they can do it in the posh restaurants and in the high street, you can do it too. In my opinion and many others, great customer service counts and small changes can often have big impact. Customer service today means do your job well and pamper your client. It's not just the service you provide but how you present it. Read the manual, fix the problem and go the extra mile. Find the ingredients, make the food and present it far better than anyone else. Build a web site, add a blog, monitor and amend to provide the experience your visitor wants and give them great stuff and ideas for free. Make it easy for them to find the free stuff and get the free stuff. Use RSS, Newsletters, Email, Ebooks, PDFs, presentations, articles, short stories, videos, and even books. Show them just how much you know and how well you can do it. It no longer counts to meet customer expectations. You need to exceed customer expectations and try to bring something new to the mix too.
Coca Cola demonstrates how they meet and give customer service on-line here. They even provide a bit of customer focused happiness. Tara Scarlet from Coca Cola will be presenting at Ad:tech San Francisco
If you find yourself stuck on hold when trying to complain about customer service don't forget to check gethuman.com for that quicker route to a human operator.
Just one last thought on providing great customer service can be viewed here.
Web Page Last updated: June 2008