What Is Great Customer service

We've all experienced great customer service at one point or another where we step into our favorite coffee shop and the server remembers your name or better yet your usual order, or even when we go to a restaurant and we are greeted with a great big smile and you know and can feel the atmosphere of the restaurant. Inversely we've experienced the opposite side where we order something specific e.g. no mayo no tomato and get the exact opposite extra mayo and 4 tomatoes.

We might be thinking why did this happen I was the ONLY one in line! Well much of that is going to have to do with attitude of the employees as well as the leadership in the store. Now I know all too well what the effect can be from both sides of the line and just as well know how to have an impact on both management and employee from both sides of the fence as well. Over the next few minutes we will focus on a few key aspects on how to be able to deliver great customer service.

Picture this, your friend has invited you to go with him to a theme park because he didn't have enough people and didn't want to lose out on the ticket he bought. Excited you go to meet him expecting a great day at the park having fun riding the rides and doing all the fun things that one would normally do at a theme park. Much to your surprise he left out a key detail about the invite, he was taking the church kids to it and now you have just volunteered to babysit 20 something kids instead of roaming around the entire park you have. With this your attitude has changed, in one of two ways:

1. You love kids and will have more fun than anticipated or...

2. You're not so great with kids and now feel very limited in what you can do as far as have fun.

Either way your attitude has changed to the scenario and so will too the experience that comes with it. This is one way to show that attitude towards customer service is the most important aspect our jobs. Our attitude toward our job will either make or break the relationship with our customers especially in those first few seconds of the first impression. It's during these seconds that our attitude is noted by customers to see if we are actually willing to help and they notice that we enjoy our jobs. It doesn't matter if we have the most knowledge on all the products we sell it's all for nothing if you can't keep that customer to come back and request YOU for their sales needs.

No matter what job you may hold fast food, retail, car dealership, video games store it's going to be very similar in most aspects. If you're like me and like to try different things often you go into a store and start to make mental notes of the place, what you like or don't like about it and also start to compare it to your favorite store similar to whether it's a restaurant, mall, or where you get your oil changed we all do this though we may not be aware of it. Now I'm the type of person to base my impression of a company as a whole from the first time I visit a new venue. Now its personnel are what's going to either keep me coming back or never go back again and tell my friends to not go there as well.

If they have a great attitude towards their work and it looks like they enjoy their job I will more than likely return even if it is a bit pricey, and this is how a great plenty of consumers think. They would rather shop in a place that has great service and spend a few extra bucks or travel a few extra miles to get that great service.  We do this because we as consumers like to be treated respectfully and like to be catered to, and if we know we can get this catering at a shop that we frequent we are more likely to go there rather than to take a chance at somewhere we are not too sure of.

Service...ah what a concept. Never have to repeat your order, always have a full drink or get exactly what you are looking for and leaving without a doubt in the world that what you bought is exactly what you were looking for. Now is this in the product itself or the service you received while purchasing this product? Well its really going to depend on what you do for customer service and for this we will stick with a typical retail store electronics should suffice.

What we need to do in our customer service roles is to help the customer as we would like to be helped. Ask questions we might have that they have not yet thought of and utilize every tool given to us by our company to accomplish this. By doing this and giving the customer your undivided attention it can completely change the mindset of the customer and have them coming back for more service from you and YOU specifically. For example you walk into Best Buy looking to buy a brand new, super cool, awesome giant 64 in. 3D LED TV, but don't know a thing about them. You go and gawk at them for a while trying to figure out what all the specifications mean and what you want to do with them. No one helps you, so you grow impatient and go up to a guy and let them know, "Hey I want that one" So he goes and gets what ever cart he needs to carry the thing to the front and for you to buy it. You leave with and incredibly expensive piece of equipment without really knowing what you bought. What happens next is worse, you get home and realize that it looks funny and makes your eyes hurt when you watch it in your bedroom. You end up taking it back and are now disappointed that you had to stick with your regular CRT TV.

Why did this happen?

You had no service, no one to help you pick out the right TV for your needs. Now rewind and lets try that scenario again. As you are gawking at the beauty of Avatar playing on the LEDs someone walks up to you and asks if you need help, you snap out of your gaze and acknowledge them, "Yeah, I want that one" you tell them. They proceed to ask you a few questions to find out if that particular TV is right for you. You tell them you are going to be putting in your bedroom and various other things about what you need, and they proceed to tell you little intricacies about them how to get the best view and that yes a LED TV can be too big for a room. They continue to let you know that you can get another model that would fit just fine in your bedroom and without all the HDMI outlets because you told them you are only going to plug in your VCR into it, which saves you a few buck that and he tells you what all the specifications mean to you as far as the differences between 1080i, 720p, 120hz, 240hz, 60hz. After this you finally decide which one is going to be best for you and your room and not only that you are now more informed on what's what with your new TV. You know your TV inside and out before even getting it out of the store. You feel empowered now and will more than likely buy from here again, no?

That is what we should do to everyone we meet in our customer service jobs because we probably know a little bit more about the product we sell and any promotions we may be having than the customer does. Our job is to educate the customer into buying the best product whether it be a meal, mower, or TV.

Don't you just hate it when you go to purchase something that you don't know too much about and you ask a few questions and the person that is selling it to you knows LESS about it than you?! It's part of our responsibility to know what we are selling for the sake of the customers. Because if we can't educate them who will. Now I know that it is hard to know every single detail about every single item in our stores that we work in and even more so if we only specialize in a certain department, but when a customer asks us about something we do not know about we shouldn't dismiss them with the all too common "Uh...I don't know that's not my department". What that does is frustrate customers, because according to them, since we work there we should know where everything is or what it does.

What we should do with these customers is to first admit to them "you know what I don't know where/what that is but I do know where to find the answer" We help the customer even though we can't help them directly. Worst case we get a manager involved. Most places have a resource center of where to find things or how to find information on products and that's what we should do for the customers.  We didn't directly help them but as far as they are concerned without you they couldn't of had found what they were looking for.  So as far as knowing it all we can't...but we can help find answers to their questions.

If you have made it this far I commend you and some of you are probably asking yourself: Why do all of this?  It's just a job that pays the bills for the time being until I win the lottery.  Well to be honest with you, you don't have to do any of this, but if you want your job to be a bit more enjoyable, have some fun while at work and even make a few friends and get to know people of all kinds of background this will get you off to a good start.  Keep in mind this is a rudimentary starters guide to giving great customer service, but be assured that if you strive to follow and keep in mind most of these you will be on the right path to having a job that you enjoy doing.  Serving people is what I have been doing for the past 6 years and I enjoy it if I know that a customer ask for me as soon as I walk in or that my co-workers or even superiors tell me Hey Susy asked for you, I tried to help her but she refused and said she would only talk with you.  I know I have done my job in making someone's day easier and better just by doing my job.