It amazes me that some companies treat their customers so poorly. You know, the people who keep these companies in business?

You would think that the benefits of treating customers well were obvious. Like keeping them as customers… encouraging them to buy more and more often… inspiring them to recommend their friends and colleagues to the company, and so on. Not to mention avoiding the “penalties” of poor customer service: losing them as customers and having them recommend that their friends and colleagues NOT buy from the company. And apparently more people are inclined to warn people against a company they don’t like, than recommend a company they do like!

So why is good customer so hard for some companies? My guess is that there is not enough commitment to, and discipline around, good customer service. Serving the customer is simply not as valued as getting them in the first place. I also suspect that when a customer complains, a couple of natural human tendencies kick in that can lead to poor service. I’m thinking here of the tendencies to:

• Be defensive when someone suggests that your company, and by association YOU, have done something wrong; and
• Be lazy. It’s so much easier to do nothing, rather than address the customer’s complaint!

And yet, it takes only a little more effort to NOT get defensive and to HELP the customer. Often problems can be resolved fairly quickly by:

1. Making an effort to not get defensive;
2. Listening - really listening - to what the customer has to say;
3. Thinking about how to solve the customer’s problem in the most appropriate way. Or, if you can’t solve the problem, escalating it to someone who can. And if no-one can solve this particular problem, being honest and upfront about it with the customer, and making other suggestions that may placate them (even if it’s just a refund).

As I often say, in an environment where poor customer service abounds, providing excellent customer service is surely a competitive advantage. So why not invest more effort in making it not just satisfactory, but second to none?