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Top tips for outstanding customer service. It's a difficult one because,
obviously, it's quite specific to the industry you're in,
but I've probably got 3, I would say, that
are key. First of all, I would always say to anyone who's in a service-led business,
in fact we're all in a service-led business, I don't care what anybody does,
it's always got to be service driven, is you have to be prepared to do
whatever it takes, and I say that very strongly.
You've got to be prepared to do whatever it takes to delight your customer.
I feel it's really really important to
put yourself in the shoes of your customer. Very easily in our own business that we create,
we become quite internalised by what we're doing, we become very passionate
about the product and the service we're providing and sometimes we forget to step outside
of that and look in
and look in from somebody else's eyes as to what it is we're actually selling,
what we're providing and how they would view it.
So I believe it's always very very important to step out
from the outside of your company and look in. You've got to be prepared to do whatever
it takes. I'll give you an example.
Many years ago, I ran an outsourcing business and we provided payroll,
personnel, finance and facilities management for schools across the UK. We competed
directly with the local education authority,
which at that time was quite, kind of, maverick, quite revolutionary,
and we remember one friday, it was a bank holiday weekend
and a school had forgotten to put a timesheet in for a particular caretaker
and that person was not going to be paid. Now it's bank holiday,
you've got somebody not being paid. It was the error of the customer,
but my payroll team said to me, and I'm the managing director of a company
turning over £25 million a month on payroll,
we can't pay this person, we haven't had the timesheet, it's bank holiday.
It happened to be this particular man's daughter's birthday on the Sunday.
I physically went out on the Saturday morning,
took the money out of my personal bank account, got into my car, drove to Dudley
and handed the man some cash on his doorstep
and I said to my team, 'We'll sort it out next week', which we did.
The man, the following week, rang up our company and said 'Ah, it's amazing, one of your
payroll people
came and delivered some cash to me on Bank Holiday weekend. I've never had anything
like that
at all from any local authority I've ever worked for, incredible!'
and the payroll team said 'Actually, that was our managing director.' Now, I use that story
because
anybody running a business, at any time, any level, should be prepared to do
whatever it takes to make sure that you deliver the service you say you're going to deliver,
on time, efficiently, and
make those promises work. And you've got to be prepared to do whatever it takes to do that.
So that's
certainly a key one for me. The other thing is,
if you're employing people, I think a lot of people take more time
deciding on the colour of the office, or what furniture they're going to buy, what kind of
reception desk,
than they would spend on actually recruiting staff. I think it's
really critical, particularly in the service industry,
to make sure you take on people who like to serve. There's a lovely Chinese saying
that says 'Man without smile should not open shop'.
And it's a very important one. If you're not
naturally a good person with people, don't be in a people environment. Don't put
people who are not naturally comfortable serving or interacting with people
in a customer service facing environment.
We have to make sure that we are putting the right people
in the right place at the right time.
So it's not just about getting the right people, it's making sure you've got the right
people doing the right job
for them at that particular time, and keeping on monitoring that as you go along
to make sure that those people are comfortable.
The other thing for me, and I think it really kind of annoys me when I'm going out
buying as a customer, so I make sure that I bring that experience back into our business,
is product knowledge. I'm absolutely astounded that when you go into,
particularly retail environments,
where you will ask someone a question on that shop floor, and say
'Could you tell me whether I should buy this',
or why it's a benefit to buy this particular product other than this one,
and the person serving me has no idea whatsoever about the
particular product they're selling. And I find that, in this day and age,
quite astounding. I know it costs money to train people, I know it costs
to develop and I know product knowledge obviously takes time and products can shift,
but I think with things like technology and those kinds of new media that are
available now, you can train all your staff
on a regular basis, or you can send them updates via their email or Twitter, or even
text them so they're constantly kept aware of the products and services that
you're able
to provide. For me it is always
be prepared to do whatever it takes, be prepared to step out from where you are
and become the customer,
so come out from the other side and view it in as if you were a customer, so you're
constantly looking from their point of view, not yours,
employ the right people and make sure they're in the right places at the right time,
and that they have a genuine need to want to serve
and also make sure that they're constantly updated with who you are as a company,
what you're about and what products and services that you're able to offer
and I think they're the key ones, and if you can combine those together,
and it's an ongoing process, and you keep on top of that,
I think you've got the absolute formula for very very good customer service.