Your Customer Is Your Paycheck

Customer service is no longer held in high esteem in today’s economy. The phrase “The customer is always right.” is dying a speedy death. “Please and thank you” is becoming a lost art and “How may I help you?” is not heard as often as needed.

When you call a business or company you no longer get a real person but you can get an autonomic response that have you to push number after number to hear “we will answer your call in the order it was received.” If a host of people are calling at the same time, your wait could be rather lengthy.

Think of yourself when you’re the customer. What do you seek? Most seek to have a problem solved by the people who should have the answers. When you are guided through a maze that constantly runs you into a brick wall, the process is frustrating. When you finally come to a real human voice, the stress quotient has been spent. Your response to the person on the line turns highly emotional.

Now, the company thinks they are being more efficient by having an autonomic system to get to every customer in X number of minutes. Pre-recorded messages are given to let the customer know we don’t play favorites and we go by our policy to make sure everyone is treated fairly. We treat everyone the same no matter what. In essence you are just a number.

People do not want to be thought of as a number as if they were serving a prison sentence. Each person wants to be validated for who they are. If they do not receive this validation they will sound off to seven to ten people about their discontent. Furthermore, they will take their business elsewhere. How do I know this? I was a number today on the phone with a company I had done business for years.

I will no longer pay them money for poor service. I have already told three people about the service I received. I will also tell others to be aware as well so that they can prepare themselves if they need answers from the same company. If I tell them they will tell others. This will generate a loss of business for this company for a number of years. They will lose money that I would have spent as well as the others I told and after a while they will feel the loss revenue.

Final analysis, we stop shopping at your place of business your employer losses money. When your employer losses enough money, you lose your job and your paycheck. Could this have been avoided? By all means it could. The solution is this. Provide the help customers need. Jeffery Gitomer in his book Customer Satisfaction is Worthless Customer Loyalty is Priceless. In order to earn your paycheck do the following:

Know Me
Understand Me
Lead Me
Help Me
Serve Me

The way I expect to be served…

NOW!

SPW

June 10, 2009