We’re so used to thinking that business is all about margins and bottom line ink that we sometimes accept dictums without thinking about their content and implications.
Take customer service for instance. Each transaction is an implicit contract between two suppliers each offering a very specific item (and I’m using the term item generically here to include both services/products and currency). The customer comes offering currency and asking to exchange it for a service or a product.
Under the very sound criteria of the old medieval village marketplace barter system the customer is prepared to haggle and expects to get the best value possible for what he is offering. In this case it’s money so the quality of the customer’s offering is determined by the size of the price he is being asked to pay.
At this point the customer will want, like his medieval counterpart, to make sure he is not sold a sub-standard service or product. Some sort of exchange will take place explaining what he will get for his money and what guarantee comes with it.
So far, so good. Everything is cosher and everyone understands what they’re supposed to do. Then, spoiling things a little comes the blind dictum of customer service professionals who think that a kneejerk reaction is always the key to providing good customer service: “The Customer Is Always Right”.
Admittedly there is good reason why this evolved in the first place. The medieval market place did have a certain notoriety for lack of customer complaint departments and a surfeit of edged weapons so something had to be done to avoid the cleaning up that had to be done after each time claret had been spilled.
So, “The Customer Is Always Right” and “The Customer Is King” were born. Like all good ideas these made sense (and they still do) up to a point. Like all good ideas they require a certain degree of common sense in their application.
We’re prepared to raise gasps and eyebrows because we really believe that we provide better customer service by thinking that the customer is not always right and he is not king!
Let’s take web design for example or even newspaper and magazine publishing these are highly skilled, specialized services we offer to our customers and, in exchange, we ask for their money. As in every barter system (even a monetized one) a certain amount of haggling takes place. We explain in detail what we do, why and how much we charge, the customer cherry-picks some services, discards others and, of the ones accepted, tries to squeeze as much added-value as possible. So far so good. We each know where we stand.
If things should go wrong (slippage in delivery schedule, a logo that the customer does not like, a website that needs some tweaking) we’re prepared to listen, explain and deliver.
And now it gets a little grey.
Because the customer is paying for a highly skilled, specialized service we make sure we listen carefully, ask the right questions and work hard to provide the right product. This is not unlike the medieval village swordsmith asking you what you will use your sword for. If all you want is a dress-piece, you need something lightweight and showy. If you’re going to do some pillaging on the other hand you really need a sturdy piece that will not let you down and the village swordsmith will explain this while he’s making it for you.
It’s the same with us. The customer may have an idea of what he wants it does not mean it’s exactly right for the job. Delivering a specialized product that will be the best possible in the field our customer is sallying forth in, is, really, our job.
While we’re prepared to listen to every customer complaint to blindly accept, without thinking, that the “Customer Is Always Right” and “The Customer Is King” is tantamount to committing professional suicide. Like the medieval swordsmith of our example, should he have given in to customer demand and produced a lightweight, showy piece for the battlefield and a heavy-duty, business-meaning broadsword for the drawing room dance floor, he’d find that not only would he be losing customers (quite literally) but would also be gaining a bad reputation for his services.
Customers come to us because we’re really good at what we do. We’re grateful for their custom and take care to treat each one the same way we’d like to be treated as customers ourselves. We listen, we think, we deliver beyond expectation.
We also protect them from themselves.
That is why we have ten reasons which explain why customers should choose us beyond everybody else and, at the same time, decide not to work with us and choose someone else.
Our ten reasons for and against working with us:
1. We don’t use templates in any of our work. Everything we do is built from the ground up, centred around the unique selling point (USP) of your business and designed to enhance it.
2. We will carefully listen to everything you tell us about yourself and your business.
3. We will ask you deep questions about your business, your intentions and your designs in order to understand how to best help you achieve your aims.
4. We will work hard and fast to give you a cutting-edge product and unparalleled service but will not water-down quality to fit in with your pre-conceptions of what you should get or the speed at which you should get it at.
5. We will ask your customers to buy your services or products based on intelligent choice. In fact intelligence, thought and choice are the central themes around all our campaigns, products and services.
6. We will work hard to make sure your business stands above your competitors’ and we’ll expect your products and services to more than stand up to close scrutiny.
7. We work across timezones and our design teams work the project, not the shift. We will contact you, on occasion, after hours.
8. We work cost-effectively, putting time, effort and money where it brings the best results to each project we take on.
9. We will explain in detail everything we ask you to accept in terms of content or design.
10. We push the development envelope with each project we take on. We want it to be a leader in its field, not a follower of the crowd.
If customers are comfortable with these then they will be happy to come to us safe in the knowledge that what we give them is empowering, a true asset to their business and something they can rightly have faith in and be proud of.
Conversely, if they are unhappy about them then these are ten reasons for choosing not to work with us. The acceptance of a customer’s money is a mutual contract we take seriously. We exchange items: they give us money, we give skill and knowledge in return. It is wrong to think that by applying a blind dictum and giving each customer exactly what they want we would be giving good customer service.
We know that the quality of our customer service is a direct result of our relationship with our customers. We always work hard to make that relationship grow and never treat a project or a customer as a one-off. To that end, like the medieval swordsmith expecting to later sell heavier armour and sword-sharpening services to his more successful customers, we work to maximize the value of each customer’s transaction with us.
The application of common sense and intelligence make for better customer service than the blind obedience and automatic lip service to a dictum that, these days, is applied in such a blanket manner that it often results in sub-standard services and short-changed customers.
We’re prepared to believe that our customers are intelligent, committed and as driven as we are. When they argue for something they need it for a specific reason and we always listen and advise giving our own, intelligent, reasons for everything we say.
This way doing business, with us, makes more senseand no claret is spilled!
David Amerland is the manager of Web Design That Works a web design studio dedicated to offering cost-effective, high-quality web design to small business. He is the CEO of Amerland Enterprises Limited, a print and digital content company whose activities range from producing controlled circulation publications to creating high-end eCommerce websites for corporate clients.
Tags: Customer relationships, Customer ServiceCustomer relationships, Customer ServiceShare This