Increase Customer Loyalty by Focusing on Service

By Barbara Bartlein

If you’re looking for great customer service, you may want to take a trip south to Georgia. Last July, Governor Sonny Perdue announced the state’s new Customer Service Improvement Initiative in which all state agencies have united in an effort to make Georgia the best-managed and most friendly state in the country. “We have a unique relationship with the citizens we serve,” said Governor Perdue. “As the true shareholders, the citizens are the real owners of this state. We all report to them. Citizens want their interactions with the state to be Fast, Friendly and Easy.”

The governor established four customer service standards:

• GREET your customers promptly and courteously.
• LISTEN and verify your understanding of the customer’s nee
• HELP customers with your answers and actions.
• HONOR your commitments in a timely manner.

Five key customer attributes were also identified: courtesy, helpfulness, accessibility, responsiveness, and knowledge. All state agencies were challenged to create and implement customer service programs to accomplish these goals.

Subsequently, Chancellor Erroll B. Davis, Jr., asked the 38,000 faculty and staff employed by Georgia’s 35 public colleges and universities to provide faster, friendlier, and more efficient service to the University System of Georgia customer, including more than 253,500 students.

“The campus-based customer service improvement plans that were launched in August began to create a culture that places more emphasis on customer service,” Chancellor Davis stated. “In line with the Governor’s goal of achieving the best-managed state government, we intend to provide a model of service unparalleled in public higher education.”

All the college campuses established customer service initiatives. They conducted additional training on the appropriate use of phone procedures and utilized “secret shoppers” to evaluate the service. They assessed the ease of college processes such as enrollment, registration, financial aid, and other offices that provide frontline service to college students. Many of the colleges and universities developed centralized enrollment and registration processes to make it easy to be a student. Facilities are also redesigning Web sites to make them user friendly and easy to navigate.

An employee recognition program for exceptional service was also established at the colleges. Referred to as the S.T.A.R. program, it recognizes those employees who demonstrate the four values of great customer service: Service, Teamwork, Attitude, and Responsibility. Regular reports, feedback, and meetings take place to reinforce the focus on great customer service at all locations.

Take a lesson from Georgia and establish a focus on exceptional customer service for your business to increase customer loyalty. Here are the components of a great customer service initiative:

• Promote communication. Every employee must understand that service to both internal and external customers is their key responsibility. Customers are not an interruption or a bother; they are who pay the pay-cheque. As a business, make sure you’re having regular communications with your customers by providing newsletters, follow up calls, holiday greeting cards, and email specials.
  
  
• Build employee loyalty. Loyalty builds from the top down. If you are loyal to your employees, they have a positive attitude about the job. Make sure that they are engaged and energetic. I have never seen great customer service from disgruntled employees.
  
  
• Provide training and education. This should include an understanding of the company values and the specific ways in which you want employees to interact with customers. Training in phone etiquette, how to respond to angry customers, and the importance of follow up are critical. Training must be on-going with at least yearly reminders to maintain quality service.
  
  
• Emphasize people over technology. The harder it is for a customer to speak to a human being, the less likely that you will see that customer again. People are worn out with telephone cues, overseas customer service staff, and long hold times. The money “saved” by not having an easily accessible customer service representative may actually represent a fortune of lost customers.
  

• Be flexible. Solve your customers’ complaints or problems quickly and efficiently. Excuses about policy, procedures, or computer glitches will lose more customers than closing the store. Resolve the problem on the first contact.
  

• Offer customer incentives. Give them a reason to want to come back. These can be reward cards, free gifts, discounts on special services, or birthday sales. I routinely offer a “warm weather discount” to anyone who books my services in a warm place.
  

• Know your customer’s names. I use to stop at the same deli almost three times a week for lunch. Each time the owner would ask my first name to call out when the sandwich was ready. After six months he was still asking my name, so I quit going. I have other people learn my name when I don’t even give them money. Impress your customers by learning their names and something about them.
  

Barbara Bartlein is The People Pro and President of Great Lakes Consulting Group. She offers keynotes, seminars and consulting to help you build your business and balance your life. She can be reached at 888-747-9953, by email at: barb@thepeoplepro.com or visit her Web site at www.ThePeoplePro.com

Published March 2008 Networking Today