The golden rule

I’m sure you have all heard of the Golden Rule when it comes to customer service: He with the gold rules!

It’s simple really and best of all it’s basically free! Offering a high level of customer service usually doesn’t cost much more than offering ordinary or simply outrageously bad customer service!

As the media continues to pound the doom and gloom of the current economic conditions, every cent you can make, save or steal is vital! With limited dollars in the marketplace and everybody competing on a ‘price war’ scenario it will soon turn from who has the lowest price to who is offering me more value for money.

Value is purely an issue of perception. If you’re smart, it is something you can build easily at a time like this and gain some huge competitive advantages from.

I’m not really sure where ‘true’ customer service has gone but I am sure it’s hard to find these days. More alarming is that many of us are surprised to receive such service, which is truly an indictment on the retail and service sectors! The silly thing is, it’s just not that hard.

Simple issues such as ensuring you acknowledge people when they walk in the door. I’m serious. I waited 15 minutes in an empty pizza store last week waiting for one of five people to acknowledge me and ask if I had been served. It’s not like it was packed…I was the ONLY customer!

Even when I proceeded to stand right up at the counter with my arms crossed, I still did not manage to rouse a single word. It was beyond bad service and tippled into down right rudeness.

That business has lost me for life.

In fact I tell other people not to go there anymore.

You see service has a ripple effect. If it’s bad it will travel like wild fire. Nothing beats a good story about how badly you were treated. In the same breath though, great service carries a ripple too.

It’s no secret that in terms of marketing, nothing is stronger than a genuine referral. It beats any other form of advertising and marketing effort known to man. It carries with it a potency that a creative director could only ever dream of creating in a campaign.

Service is one of the easiest ways to get yourself endorsed by somebody else. It’s cheap and effective.

There are countless other methods to build your levels of customer service other than simply saying ‘hello’ of course. In the past we have written entire strategies on the subject for clients, developed surveys specifically targeted at finding out the level of a company’s customer service and implementing methods of improving it, ranging from rearranging store layouts, door counter systems and staff training.

So if you’re a little quiet at the moment, spend some time looking at how you can become more valuable. Increase the asset value of your service and put a smile on every person’s face. At worse you’ll make someone’s day!