Are you losing sales due to poor customer service?
Business tips by Fione Tan, Internet Marketing Coach
Is customer service still important? How are you ensuring that the quality of your service is good? Even after running my internet business for over 7 years, i can still find flaws and areas of improvement in order to ensure the customers get a great experience when dealing with eOneNet.
I remembered a story that my American expatriate friend, working in Singapore, shared with me about online customer service. Since she was working abroad, she would regularly shop online for gifts to her friends and family members back in USA. During her mother’s birthday, she ordered some gardening books for her mom, from Amazon.com and then called her mom to check whether her mom was happy with the gifts. However, some glitches happened and instead, her mom were sent Algebra and Calculus books.
When the customer found out about this error, she was very angry and contacted the customer service at the online bookstore and she was a very “fierce” customer. Finally, the online bookstore couriered the correct set of books to the mother and then my friend calmed down, and contacted Amazon back about how to return the wrong books to them. Guess what, they said, you can keep the books too! My friend was truly amazed at how the customer service team handled her complaint and now, she’s a loyal customer of their website.
There’s no way that a person or an organization can perform accurately 100% of the time, but if an error does occur, the customer wants to know how you will remedy the situation. Even if the company is selling an expensive product, it doesn’t mean their service is 100% on par.
Let me share with you a story lately. 2 weeks ago, i saw an advertisement for Mercedes Benz open house and decided i would drop over to their luxury car showroom. The first choice of showroom i visited was the one at Mutiara - The Curve Mercedes car showroom. As it was a weekend, i was in my casual fun clothes - miniskirt, Hello Kitty accessories and my LV sling bag. The salesperson casually entertained me for about 10 minutes and then headed back to enjoy the refreshments that were on display during the “open house”. He also didn’t tell me about any offers or promotions that they were having that day.
Therefore i left and asked for their other showroom locations, and decided to visit the Ampang branch of Mercedes car showroom at Jalan Tun Razak.
Here, i found a very friendly car salesman and he was eager to introduce the various Mercedes Benz car models, like the E Class above. In the end, my visit to the car showroom ended with me buying a brand new Mercedes Benz car. I’ve just collected my new car a few days back and will only drive it for the first time the next round i’m back home in KL (i didn’t test drive the cars before so i recorded the basic instructions on managing the car, and they got lots of functions that my BMW didn’t have).
Even if it was luxury cars like Benz, which sells for over US$50,000 for a C Class model, would have variations in terms of their sales person’s service. When i visited the first car showroom, maybe i was labelled as not the type that can afford their cars, but in the second car showroom, they were pleased to just share with me their products.
That brings me back to my first BMW experience 3 years back where i was ordering my first BMW car from the Auto Bavaria car showroom and while i was preparing the cheques, one of the salesperson mistook me as the secretary as i was there with another colleague. When the salesperson saw me signing the cheques, he immediately apologised on this, and we all had a good laugh.
Therefore i guess it’s by training and constant reviews that we can ensure that we are able to deliver better customer service. One of the ways to review the customer service is also by sending in “mystery shoppers” where agents could pose as customers and record the conversation, which will be later brought up during the review and training session.
What other good customer service have you experienced before?
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May 4th, 2007 at 12:37 am
Service industry is never easy. The intensity of the feelings customers felt upon experiencing a bad service is much greater than experiencing a good one. So that’s why must always maintain the standard or improve. No room for huge mistakes!
May 4th, 2007 at 8:46 pm
Wow Fione…. You\’re an inspiration!
May 7th, 2007 at 12:41 am
Couldn\’t agree more with you Fione. Customer service is a vital component of all businesses - online and offline.
May 16th, 2007 at 12:06 am
HI all,
Customer service has been in my thoughts for a while… since I saw how my boss reacted when a waitress clear the food on our 10 course company dinner. She thought we are done but my boss reacted angrily and call her superior and demand an apology from the waitress! I begin to wonder if CS is about the customer being arrogant and demand to be serve like a king? When the retail, F&B and others industry started emphasis on CS…I observed majority begin to act as being”I Demand to be served”… It should be more like helping the customer to meet their need/wants rather than “serving” as if they are slaves or servant and standing before them like a member of the royal family. Even so we are all human being and nobody is greater than another…it has make one to be arrogant…..I used to react in such manner ….and I remembered when I was in Vermont US I got angry and furious when an elderly lady served my ice cream not the way it should be as in the menu….feeling that I was superior than them….Now I felt that I was wronged to react in such manner…. If they made mistake we forgive them and just write a feedback so that they improve and learn….My conclusion that CS had made one to be walking with the nose pointing up without realising one might trip and fall in doing so…..
June 11th, 2007 at 4:48 pm
Now aday, Customer services as important as Price and quality. If you got a good products but without any services, Even if they made a purchase from u, they won’t come back again! they rather to pay a bit more money to get a better services/ after sales services..