Take Care of your Customers or your Competitors will
Last week I had an opportunity to meet off site with my management team for a leadership training session. The session was one in an ongoing series being led by Dr. Alan Spizman of Management Resource Associates. I feel strong about the continued development of my management team and the role it plays in our ability to achieve sustainable growth. As Alan has worked closely with the likes of former GE CEO Jack Welch, the team is very lucky to have him working with us.
Part of our session included presentations prepared by our respective departments to share their teams accomplishments, failures, opportunities and challenges with the entire group. It is important for individuals and teams to periodically take a step back and think about these things especially in a fast paced environment that a technology service provider lends itself to. It proved to be extremely beneficial for the group as it gave everyone an opportunity to share, discuss and exchange ideas that will help us overcome our challenges and exploit our opportunities.
In one of the presentations led by our customer service manager, she included a couple of quotes that resonated with me.
“If we don’t take care of our customers, someone else will.” – Unknown
“In the world of Internet Customer Service, it’s important to remember your competitor is only one mouse click away.”- Doug Warner
Though very simple, these two statements are very true and often forgotten in the customer service world. Our DSL Extreme vision statement starts off stating that we provide Internet and Hosted Application services but goes on to further define that what we truly provide “superior personalized customer service and support.” That is what clients expect and pay for. If you do not strive to provide that on every interaction with your client they will be looking to your competitor to provide that. Despite how long they have been a client or how many wonderful experiences they’ve had, studies show that approximately 57% of clients terminate service after just a single bad customer service experience.
In Seth Godin’s blog post “Win the fight, lose the customer,” Seth discussed the notion that you can’t be right and have empathy for a client at the same time. Though I think it is important to explain to clients your policies / procedures to help them understand why you took the action you did, at the end of the day if you do not empathize with them, work towards correcting their underlying issues and prevent them from occurring in the future, you will lose that client to your competitors.