 You
are Vulnerable at Your Lowest Perception Point
If
you do your job well, your company will prosper and
customers will return, right?
Not necessarily. It depends on how well your colleagues
and teammates do their jobs, too.
You may be the best chef in town with fresh ingredients
and fabulous food, but if the waiters in your restaurant
are surly and rude, your customers won’t come
back.
Your chef may be great and the waiters impeccably polite,
but if your cleaner leaves the restrooms a mess, your
customers won’t come back.
Your chef may be world-class, your waiters polite and
the restrooms sparkling clean. But if your service is
s-l-o-w or the billing is wrong, your customers won’t
come back.
Your entire enterprise is vulnerable at the lowest ‘perception
point’ your customers experience or discover:
your slowest system, dirtiest floor, darkest corner,
worst driver, least-competent technician or most unfriendly
staff.
This is true for organizations. It’s also true
for individuals.
Have you ever been served by someone capable and skilled,
but with strong body odor or bad breath? Would you gladly
call on them again for service? Have you ever been served
by someone friendly, patient and caring, but technically
incompetent or clueless? Would you trust them to serve
you again?
Whatever is
your worst, lowest or least, that is where your service
reputation will thrive, dive or barely survive. Find the
lowest point in your organization, your department or
your life – and bring it up.
Key Learning
Point
Customers form their
opinions through a series of ‘perception points’;
every moment as they see, hear, touch, feel, smell or
taste your products, people, packaging, places, promotions,
policies and procedures. Your entire business is vulnerable
at the lowest point in that chain.
Action Steps
Review every point
of customer contact. Start with your products and systems.
Identify everything that is obsolete, incorrect, difficult
to read, hard to use, confusing or just plain ugly. Choose
the worst and make it better.
Next, examine your people. Find those who are slow, late,
uncaring, unpleasant, unmotivated, impatient or just plain
rude. Teach them, train them, coach them, motivate them,
reward them, encourage them, inspire them. But if all
that doesn’t work, then just let them go.
Finally, examine yourself. Where are you late, sloppy,
inefficient, ineffective or incomplete? Pick one area
you can improve this month and take the action you need
to improve it.
Next Article in Customer Service Perception Points >>
Million Dollar Voice Mail
First Article in Customer Service Recovery >>
What to do When Your Customer is About to Explode
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Ron Kaufman is an internationally acclaimed customer service training educator for quality service.
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