One of the most profound advice that any of us can follow to provide the best customer service is delivered by the Pitbull of Personal Development Larry Winget. He shares this in his books and his presentations. He talks about there being 1000s of books on the “secrets of customer service” and Larry boils it down to just two words. His advice “BE NICE”. Quite simply, it isn’t a secret, it is a method not utilized enough!
In business, as in life, we are often rushed, we are under stress, we cannot get it all done. And at times we feel others are at fault, we feel that this is the fault of someone else. It can’t be our fault! And into our life, perhaps by phone, perhaps face to face, a customer comes to us, they want to do business with us, they want to buy our products and services. They want to give us money for a product or service we offer. And what do we do? We all too often take out our stress on them. Do we honestly think they really care? Do we really think this is going to escalate their admiration for us or the job we do? Is this going to build the relationship that successful commerce is built on?
We build businesses, we want business, but then when business comes at us, we often are not prepared. Maybe it is the time of the day, maybe it is the day of the week, or maybe it is simply the season when our services are in the highest demand. But when the stress is high, we then commit the worst sin there is in the world of customer service. We laugh at the customer when they want it today. We give them a hard time as it is the middle of the busiest time of the year. We even go as far as to allow our frustrations to spill over to them, yes, we take it out on them! Quite frankly, we often become jerks, and they go away, many never to return.
What is worse, we spent our hard-earned dollars to make them come to us. We marketed for them. But do we then take our frustrations out on them and in a sense, tell them, we do not have time for you. And we wonder why our business may not thrive like we think it should on a year-round basis. We wonder why our profits; our ROI is not where it really should be. And worse of all we build a business with a lowered value with possibly a string of reviews that maybe are not the most complimentary to our products or our services.
We should remember this; the customer does not care about our problems. They do not care about our problems. They simply want what they want when they want it. Is this a bad thing, isn’t this that great trophy we all work to get called a customer?
So, think for a minute, is my customer service phenomenal? Do we take care of our customers as we would want to be taken care of if we were the customer? Is my customer service to the level that in every single phase of our customer relationship we are building that goal customer, the Enthused Customer? That customer that tells everybody You Gotta Try My Guy!
Great customer service equals great sales which then equals great profits. And the word profit; is this not why you are in business, to garner the profits so you can have and do the things in life that you want to do?
Think about it, it may just be your secret sauce to new heights of success. And instill Larry’s advice in your team, Be Nice! But to have a team that acts nice, you as the leader must show the way. As the leader leads, so the follower follow!