MANAGEMENT TOP 5 CUSTOMER FOCUS

Management must develop an attitude that puts the customer in every decision made. The customer is the reason we are in business. Without customers there would be no job to perform, no requirements to be met, and no reason anyone would wish to purchase your company's stock.

As explained in the Introduction, there are two kinds of customers: internal and external. External customers provide income for the organization through purchasing goods or services. Internal customers (employees) satisfy the requirements of the external customers and the requirements of others in their own organization. Both are important and need to be understood for an organization to succeed and prosper.

External Customers

The expression "The customer is always right" is not always true; however, one right of the customer is always true: "The customer has the right to purchase from whomever he wants." With this in mind, we should make every attempt to make sure the customer wants to buy from us.

To assess the needs of your customers, utilize input from all customer contact personnel. In an organization that follows TQM principles, input can come from the sales representative, your marketing group, the quality department, manufacturing, customer service, and engineering. The method in which the input is provided can be reactive or proactive. Both sources should be looked upon as opportunities for satisfying your customers' needs.

Reactive input is in the form of customer complaints or from interpreting customer purchase orders or sales inquiries.

When customer complaints are received, either as written complaints or in the form of returned goods, most organizations react as fire fighters and focus on the hot spot.

We sometimes ignore the system that created the problem in the first place. When a purchase order or sales inquiry is received, most organizations interpret their customer's requirements through the mirror of their own paradigms.

Proactive input is solicited through visits to the customer's place of business, visits to your facility by your customer, customer satisfaction surveys, and by cross-functional teams consisting of employees from customer and supplier facilities.

All these activities should be part of management's strategic business plan.

Internal Customers

In a TQM environment, the attention paid to employees is as important as, if not more important than, attention paid to the customer. The employee is the internal customer of the organization, the individual who can make things happen.

His or her understanding of the organization's goals and commitment to the customer must be complete. This can be assured by following a three-step process that includes (1) an employee survey, (2) an employee training program, and (3) regular communication sessions to continually reinforce the organization's goals.

Employee Survey

The employee survey should be designed to provide an assessment of how the employee feels about the company and how he perceives his role to the customer. An example of a survey I used successfully. The TQM steering committee should review and analyze employee survey results and determine the training program required to bring employees up to speed on company goals. Training can be conducted by inside experts or by using outside resources. There are advantages and disadvantages to both approaches.

The advantages to using inside experts are cash flow containment and assuring that the training is tailored to existing company paradigms. The disadvantages of using in-house experts are having to overcome existing negative perceptions of the expert, if there are any, and removing the expert from his duties to provide preparation and training.

The advantages of using outside sources for training are many. Among them is the natural perception that an outside consultant knows more about a subject than inside people.

This advantage can create a more receptive learning environment for the employee. Another advantage is that no time is taken from anyone's schedule for preparation of lesson plans. Two major disadvantages are expense and the fact that the outside resource is not familiar with your company culture.

Both options of training must be evaluated by the TQM steering committee, and selection of training resources should be made on the best fit analysis. The key is to assure that whatever training source is utilized that the source emulates the goals of the organization.

Activities concerning customers need to be communicated to everyone in the organization in a timely manner. Most information can be distributed on a monthly basis, but special news should be disseminated as required. An ideal method of sharing news is through a company newsletter that contains information on employees, customers, and continuous improvement activities.

STOP WHEN YOU SEE COMMUNICATION RED LIGHTS FOR BETTER CUSTOMER SERVICE

STOP WHEN YOU SEE COMMUNICATION RED LIGHTS FOR BETTER CUSTOMER SERVICE
When To Stop When You See Communication Red Lights For Better Customer Service?


Effective communication can trip on any number of obstacles. You need to be consciously awareness of the roadblocks in your path that hinder your ability to communicate well.

When you send a message and receive either negative feedback or no feedback, ask yourself if you missed any communication red lights.

Performance Prompts
• Language can be a communication red light. You might unconsciously use technical phrases, jargon, company terms, acronyms, or slang that the receiver of your message does not understand.
• Accents can be a communication red light. How you pronounce your words can be confusing to others.
• Distractions can be a communication red light. When you are listening, your brain can process more words per minute than the speaker can verbalize, so your mind has idle time while you are listening. By allowing your thoughts to wander from the speaker, you may misinterpret a message.
• Nonverbal signals can be a communication red light. You can say one thing but send a completely different message.
• A person’s appearance can be a communication red light. When someone is dressed inappropriately for the work situation, the listener focuses more on the person’s appearance than on what the person is communicating.
• A person’s attitude can be a communication red light. Present a poor attitude, and communication is blocked. You are going to focus on the attitude and not on what the person has to say.


When This Happens . . .
A customer is talking to you in a heavy accent. Although you are listening carefully, you are not sure you understand the message.

You do not want to offend the person, yet you do not want to misinterpret the message and give an incorrect answer.

Try This
Do not let the customer continue without clearing up your confusion. Wait for a break and say, “I’m sorry. I’m not sure that I’m understanding you correctly. Did you say . . . ?”

Saying this in a caring manner lets the customer know you are truly interested in what is being said. Continue to paraphrase what the customer says to stay on track. “OK, you would like to order____, right?”

Always match your language style to the person with whom you are communicating.

UNDERSTANDING WHAT THE CUSTOMER WANT FOR BETTER CUSTOMER SERVICE

WHAT THE CUSTOMER WANT - CUSTOMER SERVICE CONTEXT
The Importance of Knowing What Customer Wants

One thing about the customer service techniques you’re going to learn: you can’t succeed with them by memorizing them or using them in every situation. The key to customer service is doing the right thing at the right time.

To be able to choose the right techniques and to use them effectively, you have to understand what customers want. Knowing this will help you make sense of the techniques you’ll be looking at.

Below is a list of the most important customer wants and needs.When you address these, you create positive customer perceptions about you and your company. That means fewer arguments, fewer hassles, and better customer relationships.

Customers want:

■ problem solved

■ effort

■ acknowledgment and understanding

■ choices and options

■ positive surprises

■ consistency, reliability, and predictability

■ value (not necessarily best price)

■ reasonable simplicity

■ speed

■ confidentiality

■ sense of importance

Customers want their problem solved. They want to get what they want from you, whether it’s a product, service, or other output. This is the customer service “want” that most people are familiar with.

However, it’s not always possible to give the customer what he or she wants, which is where the rest of the “wants” come in.  Even if you can’t solve the customer’s problem, you can create positive perceptions by addressing the other, less obvious customer wants.

Customers expect that you (and your company) will make an effort to address their problems, concerns, and needs, even if you can’t give them what they want. Customers respect effort, often pay attention to effort above and beyond the call of duty, and will turn on you (create hassles) if they sense that you aren’t making an effort.

Many of the techniques you’ll learn later in this book work because they demonstrate “effort above and beyond the call of duty.” Customers want and expect to have their wants, needs, expectations, feelings, and words acknowledged and understood.

 That means listening and proving to the customer that you have “got” what he or she is saying.  Customers who feel understood and acknowledged feel important, and that’s a vital part of good customer relationships.

Customers also want to feel they have choices and options and are not trapped by you or your company. They want to feel they can decide and that you’re helping them, rather than the other way around.

When customers feel helpless or powerless, they’re more likely to become frustrated, angry, and aggressive. Customers also appreciate “positive surprises.” Positive surprises are things you do that go above and beyond their hopes and expectations (going the extra five miles).

They include offering discounts or providing some other benefit that’s normally unavailable to them. Positive surprises are most useful when dealing with difficult or angry customers. Consistency, reliability, and predictability are also important customer wants.

Customers expect that you will treat them in a consistent way and that you’ll always do what you say you’ll do. By acting in accordance with these wants, you provide the customer with a sense of security and confidence in both you personally and in the company. This builds loyalty.

Customers also expect value for their investments of time and money. What’s interesting here is that while money (price) is part of the value equation, it’s only a part. When customers look at value, they also take into account how they’re treated, the quality and expertise of the advice they receive from you to help them make decisions, and a number of other factors.

You may not be able to affect the price of services or products you provide, but you can add value by helping the customer in other ways. Reasonable simplicity is another important customer want.

These days many people are overwhelmed by a complex world. If you complicate the customers’ world or make them jump through a number of hoops, they will become frustrated and angry.

One of your customer service roles should be to make things easier for the customer, not more complicated, without oversimplifying or treating the customers in a condescending way.

Speed and prompt service are also important. At minimum, customers want you to make the effort to help them quickly and efficiently. They also expect that you will not create situations that have them waiting around unnecessarily. While you may not always be able to control how fast a customer is served, you can convey a sense that you’re working at top speed.

Confidentiality is an important aspect of customer service. Clearly customers want you to keep their sensitive information to yourself, but it goes further than that. Customers also want a degree of privacy even when talking to you about what may seem to be a mundane or nonsensitive issue. Customers may feel uncomfortable if there are other staffs or customers crowding around them.

We’ve left the most important need for last. Customers need the sense that they are important. Many of the above wants tie into this. Listening to and acknowledging customers demonstrate that you believe they are important.

So does arranging for pleasant surprises or making an effort. Many of the specific phrases and techniques you’re going to learn tie directly into helping the customer feel important.