Would A Smile Really Hurt? Good and Bad Customer Service

I hate bad customer service. Seriously. I detest it. 

I don’t see any reason for poor customer service. It’s your job. I am here to buy a service or a product from you, willing to part my cash with you. The chances are, you have lots of competitors, lots of other places I could go and spend my money.  

But I’ve chosen you. The least you can do is smile. 

For me, good customer service should be a given. It really doesn't take much to be polite and smile. To be honest, I tend to get those things from strangers in the street, so I don’t think it’s too much to expect that the staff assistant or service member I have to deal with when I want something does the same thing.  

Brands and companies should place good customer service at the forefront of their values. Without a doubt. It’s the largest amount of interaction your customers will have with you, and you need to make it count. It should be memorable for all the right reasons. Good customer service, means a happy customer. And a happy customer means lots of repeat business (regardless of price!) and lots of referrals. 

Bad customer service means poor relationships, and lots of negativity. In the social - “complain at the touch of button to millions of people” - world we live in, that isn’t a good thing.  

Good customer service isn’t hard. Not at all. Maybe you need to teach a few points to your staff, but if you’ve got the right people on your team, it should come naturally. You just have to remember that the customer wants to give you their money, so all you have to do is help and make it as easy as possible, remembering these simple tips:

• The customer is always right. Bitch and moan about us as much as you like when we’re gone, but when you’re dealing with us, 999/1000 we’re right.
  
  
• Smile at us and ask us a nice question. It goes a long way.
  
  
• Offer us a solution to any problem we have, or apologise and explain why you can’t. Explanations make a HUGE difference.
  
  
• Don’t try and give us something we don’t want. Don’t push your luck with us, we want to buy x, not y and z. Ask us nicely if we’re interested, because we might have missed it, but then don’t push anything else.
  
  
• Just make us feel welcomed, appreciated and like we’ve got a good deal. If we know you’ve genuinely wanted us there, and really tried to help, it makes us happy, and makes us want to come back.  

Thinking about customer service before profit margins, will actually increase your profit. If I want the expensive product, but you actually think the lower spec product would be better suited, tell me! I’ll be happy I’ve saved money and you’ve been honest, and trust you 100% in the future - so I will be back.  

Tell me I’ll be better off elsewhere, and the chances are I’ll value your honesty so much I’ll actually stay and buy something anyway.  

I went to the Halifax the other day, and the cashier was new. She either hadn't been trained well, or didn’t give a shit. Because it seemed like she didn’t give a shit about me, and almost despised the fact that I had given her some work to do. And it was just some basic tasks for a bank. All she had to do was smile.  

Then we went back another day, and had some really friendly advisors help us. They were pleasant, polite, and personal. And it made a big difference. The advisor had loads of technical problems with the computer, and messed things up, but, it didn’t matter, because we liked her.  

Today, I went shopping at a new Tesco store in Greenfield. Great experience. The staff couldn’t have been friendlier or more polite. And even though I had to wait in a queue for 5 minutes because I was overcharged on a item, the supervisor had prepared everything for me, and the staff member was cheerful and apologetic. They made an issue I had no longer exist. Perfect.  

This example from Argos shows how well good customer service works. 

 

I’m not saying you have to get “down with kids,” but identifying with the problems of your customers, and offering them meaningful help is all it takes to keep their business and generate more, instead of stirring up a social media storm. Argos wasn’t actually all that helpful here, but just the acknowledgement and the response made a massive difference.  

And then there’s United Airlines.  

Whatever you do when you set up your brand’s customer service procedure, don’t do this. Never ever do this. 

Generic letters are usually pretty obvious to spot no matter what, but here, well, there’s just no way out of it. There’s nothing to say really is there? Taking an extra 3 minutes to write a personal response can really be the difference between continued disgruntlement and rising anger, and the diffusing of a situation.  

This one though, you just have to laugh. 

Good customer service - it should be a given. And if your brand needs help and advice on the experience your customers, clients and guests have, well, this Manchester copywriter is always happy to help!