Today’s post was found by Andrew Powell of Montreal Canada, sent to Dr Marc Dussault who then forwarded it on to me. It’s a great example of a promotional video for a Quick Service Retail operation.

Many of the business owners I meet and work with are frustrated with their sales and customer counts because they feel that they are doing everything they possibly can to ensure ‘EXCEPTIONAL CUSTOMER SERVICE’ not realizing that the product itself acts as a barrier to sales growth.

What does your business do to measure customer satisfaction of your product and does your business act on this feedback whether positive or negative?

One business has taken the measurement and action to a whole new level not shying away from the negative feedback, they have embraced the feedback and as an entire corporation of 9,000+ stores made the changes that their customers have demanded of them.

Any Fast Food Franchise or independent operator would be well served to create a video that tells ‘their story’ like this. Please enjoy!

Further information on this story can be found at pizzaturnaround.com

This is so true with quick service retailing.

We have all experienced the customer service representative that ignores us in favor of their computer or POS screen. Trying to make eye contact or just get a response from someone absorbed in data entry can be annoying.

But here’s the thing most retailers don’t realise.

Even if a customer doesn’t remember being ignored, they may (subconsciously) associate your business with an (unknown, but felt) sense of frustration, distance or lack of ‘connection’. Those feelings will build up unbeknownst to the client and they may eventually take their patronage elsewhere.

Customer Service With A Smile

The sad part of all of this is it all happens without conscious knowledge or intent. The client simply has no compelling reason to want or desire to return so he or she simply doesn’t.

That’s a killer for a retailer.

So what can you do to optimise the necessary POS data entry while offering outstanding customer service?

POS Customer service Tip #1:

Explain what you’re doing to the customer while you so it. That means as you’re typing, you say “I’m pulling up your account file to make sure our records are up-to-date” By doing that, the customer is INVOLVED in the process. Engaging the customer in the task CONNECTS you to him/her. As the information comes up, you can mention something like “Just to make sure, you’re still at 123 Main Street right?” You can then add a personal anecdote “I used to live near there, the dog park was great when I had my golden retriever…” Adding a personal anecdote builds rapport within the process that otherwise alienates the customer. Of course, if you’re really systemised, you’ll start to input your customer’s tastes and predispositions such as “ dog or cat owner, single, has children, tennis player, classic car enthusiast, etc. That will help you become more specific in your marketing campaigns.

POS Customer service Tip #2:

This customer service tip is obvious, but needs to be repeated – look up from the screen and make frequent eye contact with your customer. It may slow down your typing, but this is a key component to establishing rapport and a personal connection.

POS Customer service Tip #3:

A savvy customer service person will use the time the computer takes to load or perform a transaction to chat with the customer. This needs to be systemised within your sales process. The more natural it is, the better the outcome, but it does need to be part of the process as much as getting a credit card slip signature.

So there you have it, 3 simple customer service tips that can help you make a difference to your retail sales – especially the valuable repeat sales that are a must for any retailer to build a profitable business foundation for the future.

Your Customers Are Made of Money

I HAVE to break this to you, businesses cannot survive without customers. A business without customers is like a well without out water. Good customer service is the ground water that fills up your well. You’re high and dry without a reputation for taking care of your customers. Plus, the longer you keep customers, the wetter your well, because long term customers are more profitable. A 5% increase in customer retention can boost profit by 25% to 125%

Not digging the well analogy? Here is another way to think about it; your customers are money, gold to be exact, because they appreciate in value as time goes on. You may not think of customers as goods that can be bought or traded, but they’re assets to your company, just like stock investments or an office computer. They are them most vital part of your business’s economic machinery.

You pay hard-earned business capital to market to your customers, you essentially buy their patronage, one person at a time. Once bought, a customer will continue to generate your income, without much further advertising effort. On the flip side, customers who leave take with them every cent that you invested in marketing to them.

Customer retention is FREE MONEY! If you go the extra mile to keep customers, your marketing budget will go down, and your profits will go through the roof. You’ll have to ‘buy’ less new customers, and loyal customers generate some powerful word-of-mouth patronage.

Losing customers has the opposite effect, and can be truly devastating. And, you have no excuse for customers walking away from your business because of poor service, it’s the most controllable factor of your business. Technology can fail, accounts can pay late, but there is no reason to be rude or inattentive to a customer.

One way to gear up for fantastic customer service it to train employees to see each customer for how much they’re really worth. They may treat customers a bit differently if they imagined them as giant stacks of money or piles of gold. Each retained customer is (literally) money in the bank.

Today’s lesson is two-fold (1) Life’s too short to be too serious and (2) whenever you take a great idea, be careful not to take it to an extreme or distort the ORIGINAL intention of the strategy.

Often the success is all about the NUANCE. For example “Would you like fries with that?” was an INSTANT success, but the alternate “Would you like an apple pie with that?” was not. People did not associate hot apple pies with hamburgers, even though the apple pies were good.

Furthermore, long term customers are usually more profitable. A 5% increase in customers retention can boost profit by 25% to 125% ^[2] You also run the risk of her leaving and telling other people and losing potential customers because of her bad experience. Clearly you have to keep her from leaving angry, but how?

Play Nice

Customers were asked what single factor best defines high-quality service. The most frequent response was personal attention. ^[3] You have to let the customer know that you are concerned that they are upset. Tell them that you will personally do everything that you can to fix the situation. Make them feel like you are on their side.

Be friendly from your first interaction, whether or not the customer is complaining, an aura of kindness goes far in any industry. There are certain customers that will make it hard to be nice. You have to try to maintain your cool, no matter what the customer does or says, you have to respond politely. Her reaction will escalate if you respond in anger, whereas overreaching politeness has the power to diffuse the whole situation.

Give It Away

No, you shouldn’t give away products to every customer who files a complaint. However, you can offer coupons, discounts, and the occasional freebee. It also helps if you have reasonable and bureaucracy-free return policy. Customers who are disappointed in a product do not want have to fill out tons of forms to get their money back.

Just under 60% of Australian respondents said they refused to buy a particular brand if prices were too high, but that number jumps to 75% when high prices were combined with poor service – the highest figure worldwide. ^[4]

The solution is in the problem, if you offer a dissatisfied customer a coupon or discount, you are both lowering the price and showing exemplary customer service.

Over Deliver

Seven out of ten complaining customers will do business with you again if you resolve the complaint in their favor. If you resolve it on the spot, 95 percent will do business with you again. ^[5] This is why you have to go ‘above and beyond’ to fulfill the needs of a complaining customer. Right away is better, but after the fact is okay if that’s not possible.

It is important to keep every customer you have. A five percent increase in customer retention will yield a 25-100 percentage improvement in profits.^[6] It is worth your effort and the price of the discount or return to keep a customer. Put yourself in the customer’s place and imagine what you would like out of the interaction. The ‘Golden Rule’ is often the key to customer retention.

You know from previous posts that Bad Customer Service is costly, whichever way you calculate the costs of losing a customer.

^[2] http://waiterbell.wordpress.com/2006/04/06/research-commonly-quoted-customer-service-statistics/

^[3] http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m3190/is_n29_v25/ai_11070542/

^[4] http://www.smartcompany.com.au/retail/customer-service-in-australia-hits-new-low.html

^[5] http://www.prlog.org/10320523-are-companies-cutting-back-on-customer-service-in-bad-economy.html

^[6] http://www.financialsense.com/fsu/editorials/tycoon/2008/0725.html