Commitment to the Customer
By Bart Allen Berry
The ten domains of customer satisfaction include one dimension called commitment to the customer. This element is, statistically, a huge influencer during the customer-supplier relationship. May suppliers of products and services will tell you that, "yes we are committed to our customers", but what does this really mean? How can we recognize and quantify this behavior - 'being committed to your customer' , more objectively?
The first thing is to understand the concept, and a favorite metaphor for the concept of customer commitment is the personal relationship, perhaps between two sweethearts. Commitment is the romance in the relationship, the sacrifice, the chivalry and the loyalty. Like your sweetheart, the customer wants to believe that they are the most important one to you, the supplier. Customers want to have a relationship, to feel valued and needed, just like your sweetheart. Customers want your full attention and concentration, and don't want to be interrupted or compete for your affections and attention.
Customers are looking for a high quality relationship, but often they are the ones doing the wooing, to try and find a supplier who will even give them the time of day. It is continuously amazing to me to see the poor relationship skills that are demonstrated by retail clerks in department store chains or 'box super stores' where often even finding a sales clerk to listen to your needs is a challenge. It is not uncommon to see sales clerks in the middle of a checkout or other transaction, stop everything to take a phone call from another potential customer calling the store. Understanding how to give customers your full attention is a critical customer service skill. Your sweetheart wants you to be 100% present, and your customers do too.
When customers need to find the location of an item, they don't need someone to just gesture in the general direction, they want the supplier's representative to take an interest in what they need, and guide them to where they can get their needs fulfilled and help them make a purchasing decision if necessary. If special arrangements or circumstances need to be arranged to fulfill the customer's needs, the customer expects their relationship partner to help them handle it, not to leave them out in the cold. It is this author's belief that this type of customer attention yields great rewards that will offset any additional costs of employee service and satisfaction training. The opportunity is to form a relationship with the customer where the customers needs are focused on and fulfilled, and real satisfaction is created. If the relationship is successful and pleasing to them, the next time this customer comes in, they will look for that relationship.
Customer commitment means more than just giving customers your undivided attention and best behavior, it also means being honest with them. Customers, like your sweetheart once again, appreciates when you give them the straight story all the way down the line. Customers feel betrayed when the supplier is dishonest or withholds details or conditions of the sale. Many suppliers boast of the great relationship they want to develop with their customers and then utilize bait and switch strategies or other subterfuge to extract more in the ways of charges and fees that were not originally brought out in the open. When suppliers are dishonest, it can ruin the relationship for life. Think of the stilted girlfriend who finds out you have been lying to her. The effect is very similar. Suppliers must train themselves to be totally honest when committing to delivery times, pricing and all other details of their product or service, or risk losing the entire relationship.
So what about when the supplier makes genuine mistakes, or when he has to give a customer bad news? Once again, in the relationship with customers, the best policy is to take responsibility when things go wrong. The quicker the supplier gets into correction mode, the faster the relationship with customers can be restored. It is a great test of a supplier in the relationship to see how they take responsibility when things go wrong and how fast and how far they will go to correct their shortfall or mistake. The more chivalrous and dramatic the corrective action, the better customers like it. When the boyfriend screws up, he brings flowers. Intelligent suppliers will even plan ahead and develop mistake recovery interventions to be armed with in the case of their inevitable mistakes. Free desert for a dinner not cooked right in a restaurant, free car wash and wax for a delayed service appointment, 10% off the overall invoice for late or inaccurate delivery. Usually the cost of these recovery overtures pales in comparison with the potential loss of ongoing and repeat business from a particular customer.
So what's the lesson here? Commitment to the customer means giving them your full attention and anticipating their needs. It means treating each customer like your most important customer. It means going out of your way to demonstrate the importance of each customer. It means being an honest relationship partner who can always be depended upon to tell the truth. Commitment means taking responsibility when things go wrong and taking chivalrous corrective action to restore confidence in the relationship. Enlightened suppliers will rigorously train all personnel who interact with customers the importance of customer commitment and will support front line personnel with the resources they need to make their customers happy.
Bart Allen Berry All Rights Reserved
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