|
|
| Customer Service Tip | Skills | Information | Articles |
|
Customer Service A Chickens Way
Anyone who knows me knows my favorite fast food restaurant is Chick-fil-A. Aside from the fact their chicken is especially good and I can always get sweet tea, I have a valuable business reason for eating there ? they serve up amazing customer service. And these lessons aren't just served in my nearest location. But in any city, any town, any time I have been to a Chick-fil-A, I have left feeling like the most valuable Customer. Now you may wonder what you can learn for your business, from a fast food restaurant. In short, plenty. Just because your business is different does not mean you can't take someone else's ideas or techniques and make them applicable to what you do. So I challenge you to be open to what you can learn from a chicken. They are focused. Chick-fil-a knows their expertise is making good chicken. You don't drive up to their window with options such as beef, pork or fish. Their focus stays on what they know. No empty promises of the best steak in town or a delicious oriental creation, just chicken. We should do the same for our Customers. Don't pretend to have expertise where you can't deliver. Customers are good at sniffing us out. If you promise something you can't deliver just to get their business; you will be without a Customer. They give me what I want. I love Polynesian sauce (dipping sauce for nuggets) for my French fries. Chick-fil-A never charges me extra even though I don't order their nuggets. They are happy to give me what I want. How many times to we charge our Customers all these added fees if they want something that is not the standard? When your Customer is hungry for something different ? make it easy for them to eat. They rest. I often crave chicken on lazy Sunday afternoons but Chick-fil-A is never open for business due to clear company values and beliefs. They choose Sundays as a day to rest. They are never open, no exceptions, and according to their business plan they never will. So often we cheat our Customers by not breaking from our work. Too much work can lesson our ability to concentrate, cloud our focus, and leave a bitter taste in our mouth. How much help are we to Customers if we are burned out? They train their employees. At a Chick-fil-A visit you will hear things like, "It is my pleasure to serve you." "Please." "Thank you." "I look forward to seeing you at the window." The atmosphere includes smiles, laughter, and happy workers who appear to love their job. And I doubt their happiness is based on a love for chicken ? they have been trained to value the Customer. If you want to excel as a business, hire superstars that believe the Customer writes their paycheck. Set expectations with your employees and staff that outstanding Customer Service is expected, not optional. Add Customer Service as a major part of an employee's orientation. And most importantly lead by example. S.Truett Cathy, chose to do things his way by taking care of Customers and employees by hiring operators and managers that believed in his philosophy. To date, Chick-fil-A, the company he founded has more than a billion in sales annually. I encourage you to visit a Chick-fil-A when you get the chance. I will continue my weekly visits to reaffirm my Customer service beliefs (and to get a chicken sandwich, no pickle with a large sweet tea!). p.s. You will notice in both articles the word Customer and Client are capitalized. Capitalizing the word is just one way we can remind ourselves of the great importance Customers have for our businesses. After all, without them, we wouldn't be in business. Holly Powers is passionate about Customer Service in her role as the Client Development Princess for The Kevin Eikenberry Group. She is also the editor of Unleash Your Potential, an electronic newsletter devoted to helping leaders, professionals and organizations reach their full potential. To learn more about Unleash Your Potential or subscribe go to http://www.KevinEikenberry.com/uypw/index.asp.
|
|
|
|
RELATED ARTICLES
4 Myths about Customer Value The purpose of business is to create and retain a customer. Poor Customer Service - Are Your Customers Driving Away Other Customers Every customer you have is a word-of-mouth advertiser for you. Unfortunately 90% of this free advertising is negative. Your goal is to get positive-word-of-mouth advertisers. What Do They Want Anyway? You want customers. I want customers. We all want customers. And traffic alone is not enough. We need "interested" customers. Customers ready to listen, ready to buy. So you may find yourself asking, what do they want anyway?.... and how can I get them to buy? 11 Ways to Get What You Want - Be a Clever Customer! We all want great service, whether we are buying our weekly groceries from a store, or want a billing hitch resolved at our local utilities provider. Whether it's getting our car fixed, or a great meal in a restaurant. So we can holler and complain about how poor customer service and satisfaction has become - or we can do something about it ourselves, when we have those one-to-one opportunities with a real person. In the Villa of the Sick Cat -- A Lesson in Customer Care If you're a pet owner, you know the stress of having a sick pet and you know that having a great veterinarian is a wonderful thing. My cat, Zoe, came down with a nasty infection that had me racing off to the vet's office last week with an unhappy, howling kitty in tow. (She's doing much better now.) Are You A Coward? I Was Over the last month, I have come to hate emails and answerphones; not because I get 100 emails every day but because emails and answerphones are fast becoming the tool of the coward. At Beyond Philosophy we worked with a client a while ago whose account managers and sales teams never used to speak to anyone! They just used to send emails. If the customer called in they were greeted by answerphones which were kept on all day. You see the sales teams were all busy doing "real" work. The customers were just interrupting them. Surely this must be the height of "inside out" behaviour. Accountability The Call Center world is an intense pressure-driven environment continually being shaped by pressure to ensure steady profitability and a secure competitive advantage. Sorry, No Customer Service After 4:00 P.M. A few months ago, I wrote about ingenious styles of customer service that every business should know about, mostly because their employees were inflicting them on their customers. What Type Of Software Is This? The other day while at the book store, I came across some accounting software CDs strewn with other CDs and books in garage sale box. Be A Resource What is one of the greatest ways to add value to your business? Nope, it's not giving away free merchandise, offering special discounts, or even creating a preferred customer club. One of the most valuable commodities that you can provide your customers is INFORMATION. Make Your Customer Your Friend The simplest way to describe a 'durian' (pronounced doo-ree-ann) is to say it's a yellowish-green fruit about the size of an mid-sized watermelon. It has a thick skin of spikes, and a rich bitterish-sweet fruit. Listening to Customers - 5 Tips In a strange juxtapositioning of articles, this month's UK 'Management Today' has three pieces, relating to the importance of listening to customers. Losing Angry Customers This article offers five ways to help you deal with angry customers. While the goal of all businesses is to have only happy customers, we also have to be realistic and realize sometimes we are going to anger a customer. Isn't it best to know in advance how to deal with an angry one, of course it is. Read on?.. Handling Difficult Customers - 8 Strategies In any business our customers are one of our most important assets. Unfortunately there are days when not all customers want to be friendly or pleasant. On days like this, try these effective tips to help you handle those difficult customers. Quality vs. Quantity There is a battle in Call Centers. The teams are Quality vs. Quantity; two performance factors that don't seem to get along. Hit The Jackpot With Customer Complaints Our most powerful instinct is to avoid customer complaints, but they may be the best thing that happens to your business. Here's why... Under Promise & Over Perform: The Art of Managing Customer Expectations I'll always feel warmly about Conrad's restaurant, in Glendale, California. Customers - Hold Onto the Ones Youve Got You probably spend a great deal of your time looking for new customers or clients. However, are you sure your doing enough to hold onto the ones you've got. Customer Service - How Good Are YOU? At 8.30 am a wealthy client (on his way to make a presentation to the local council at 9 am) walked into a store that sells photocopiers. They also provide a copy service. He wanted to make a back-up copy of his lengthy presentation. CRM For Beginners ? Customer Relationship Management Basics In order to maintain a successful business, the business must understand and maintain a positive relationship with its customers. Customer Relationship Management (CRM) is the process of bringing the customer and the company closer together. There are many different areas in which Customer Relationship Management can be implemented. The goal of CRM is to help a company maintain current customers, as well as gain new customers.
|
|
|
| Home | Site Map | Salesmanship Ebook | Motivational Ebook | Job and Resume Posting| Affiliate program | |
กก |
| 2006 All Rights Reserved. by Mp.sg Term of use and service for the articles and information |