You’ve seen them all over the place. Well, actually, you haven’t. You know I am talking about people. Real, live, able to help you people. It seems that since the dawn of cutting costs to save a company was the thing to do a few years ago, new technologies have come to light to keep those costs at bay. Kind of.
I have been in a lot of offices and I have seen everything from a receptionist (good), to an empty desk with no one seemingly around until I find one lone person on a late lunch in the break room (bad). Many offices are changing over to a simple phone on the desk that used to house a smiling face (bad). Some even have a big touch screen TV with a sophisticated program that likely costs almost what a receptionist does, just without the helpful smile and fast help (bad). Yeah, that ones brutally bad.
Nothing says, “We care about your visit” more than the total obvious lack of care at greeting you.
Have you ever gone to a restaurant that had a sign that read, ‘Please Wait to be Seated’? As you looked around the restaurant you saw some people and they didn’t really look like they were moving in your direction to seat you? The sign did tell you to wait, right? These people heard the door open and shut, they saw a new customer walk in and they decided that whatever business model they were running on did not include someone to help the people walking in the front door.
Their business model told them to put up a sign and get to people when you are good and ready.
I don’t suggest that for anyone’s business model. A sign like that is fine as a backup plan. To be used as a first impression mechanism, it seems a bit lacking in customer service.
If you have people with green money ready to give your company, you want it to be as simple as possible for those people to give you that green money. That’s the idea behind credit cards, online shopping and church plates.
It is difficult to get you green money by making people wait.
But alas, like a haircut interrupted by a barber answering the phone, some companies cut costs in brutally obvious ways that threaten the core of customer service. You see, in my world, in person green money trumps the remote possibility of money. By remote I mean, not in person as well as the slim chance that the person on the phone wants to give you money right now. Even if that phone call is a person with a bunch of cash to give you it is rude to those that you make wait. You know the ones that are actually in your place of business, with wallet in hand? As a person waiting in your office counting the minutes you could be taking care of me, I need you to know a few things:
- I count fast.
- I value my time more than yours.
- You should too, at least while I am paying you.
Ignore those rules and I will find another place to do business with. And I, personally, will blog about it. But that’s just who I am.
Let me be clear on a few things. First, many small businesses cannot afford all of the people to be available for all of the jobs, all of the time. The whole world understands this. The reality between what you can offer for customer service and what you can get away with is a fine line. I simply like to error on the side of being excellent at customer service. Call me crazy, I like to treat people that keep me fed very well.
Secondly, technology has it’s place. That place is not instead of a person in most customer interaction environments. It should be in addition to a real person. Robots build great cars, they are simply terrible at interpersonal communication. Do you love being called by a robot? Do you love speaking to a software program over the phone? How infuriating is it when you realize you are getting mad at something that is communicating with you, yet unable to feel? How often does your computer do something and you are not really sure why?
That question can be used with business owners as well. How often does a business owner do something and you are not really sure why?
James is a Business Coach and Mentor for Draw In Customers. He has helped clients improve their customer service to make the world a better place. Which made them and their own clients happier. If you would like to achieve your business success goals, and offer great customer service doing it, James has some tips for you and is available every once in a while to share them. Simply email him at james@drawincustomers.com.
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