There are no steps leading to customer satisfaction. Required steps only prevent dissatisfaction. They cannot drive customer satisfaction - Marcus Buckingham and Curt Coffman in their book 'First break all the rules' published by Simon & Schuster, New York, USA, 1999.
A lot has been said about customer service, customer relations, friendship branding and customer satisfaction and thousands are making easy money in promoting them. However, the quote above is a reality. It makes a lot of sense. Customer expectations vary among various industries. However, all customers expect the following basics in a hierarchical order based on the findings of the above quoted authors who carried out the research on behalf of the Gallup organization.
Accuracy
Availability
Partnership
Advice
Accuracy
It is the first level leading to prevent customer dissatisfaction. If your product or service is not accurate, the customers will desert at this level. Let us say you go to a restaurant. You place your order and after waiting for 40 minutes or thereabouts, the waiter brings you dishes that you have not ordered. Will you visit the restaurant again ? This applies to all products and services. At this level, customers will demand accuracy which is almost mandatory.
Availability
At the second level whatever you sell must be available easily. You may have a good product. However, if it is not available easily, the customer is not going to wait or search. Customer will look for substitutes. Banks introduced ATMs, Internet banking, SMS banking etc., partly due to competitive pressures and partly due to higher customer expectations. It benefits banks to have ATMs because it reduces the pressure on tellers. It is also cost effective.
Both the above levels can be met by use of technology. But the above two basic expectations can be copied by competitors. Hence, scoring on these two is not a strategic advantage. It is a basic must.
Partnership
This is the third level in preventing customer dissatisfaction. The customers expect partnership. They expect you to listen and respond to them. They expect you to be on the same side of the fence. They will become your advocates only if you meet this criteria.
Advice
This is the fourth and most advanced level in preventing customer dissatisfaction. Customers want to learn from you. Customers buy products or services from you for what it does. You are expected to know more about it than them. Sometimes they may even ask you your opinion about other companies, products or services which you may not be dealing with. If you can advice them then you have customers who trust and become loyal to you. At this stage they become your advocates and your reputation spreads by word of mouth. As an example, when I was working for the Swedish combine Atlas Copco and Sandvik more than 30 years ago, I was sponsored for a short term course in Mining engineering as many of our customers were mines. I could talk the same language and inform our customers as to how others are doing their work. We were given royal treatment and customers used to look forward to our regular visits. Our products were the highest priced in the market but we never had a pricing problem. It was a non issue. We never went selling. It was mandatory that we spend time with customers and we were never asked as to what we brought from the visit.
The third and fourth level cannot be handled by technology. This is where the quality of your customer sales, relations and service people comes in.
The above concepts are nothing new. I have always believed in instincts and all my reactions and decisions are instinctive. I shoot first and than ask questions later. I have made mistakes but have been right most of the times. It gives me great comfort to read Dr. Tom Peters saying that he has always been act first and think later guy. I also understand a lot of good and capable guys are like that. I am now fairly convinced that instincts are very important and should not be ignored. It is never too late to learn.
© Copyright, May - 22, 08 . Without prejudice. All rights reserved
Customer Satisfaction - To learn more about this author, visit Madhavan T Gopalachary's Website.
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Madhavan T Gopalachary
(Visit Madhavan's Website)
Madhavan Gopalachary, nick name "madgopes"
(g pronounced as in go) given by IIT
classmates, is a Mechanical Engineer and
an alumnus of Indian Institute of
Technology, Madras having passed out
specializing in IC Engines &
Thermodynamics.
He has nearly 35 years of experience in
the Corporate World. He started off as a
trainee and handled sales, marketing,
manufacturing, product management, profit
center management, strategic planning and
corporate development including R & D in
various organizations and at various
levels before becoming a CEO. His last two
professional assignments were at CEO level
before embarking to start management
consultancy business on January 01, 1998.
He has worked for British, Swedish MNCs as
well as very large Indian business houses.
He has spent a large portion of his time
from June 1998 till date in East African
Countries practicing as an independent
Management Consultant.
More details can be obtained at the
following web sites:
mmg.name/
mtg.html
mmgconsu
lting.biz/
Madhavan's articles can be accessed at www.madgopes.com
.
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