October 4th kicks off Customer Service Awareness Week. With that in mind, I thought it only appropriate to talk a little bit about what customer service means at Z&Z Medical.
Customer Service is talked about in almost every business in America, which is a good thing. But it’s only a good thing if you couple it with the word “good”. In other words, every business offers customer service, but how many can say they offer good customer service and then back it up with meaningful action. When I think of customer service, I come up with two categories, customer service during the sale or course of business and customer service to an unhappy or less than satisfied customer.
During my professional career, I have always found that if you offer good customer service during the sale or course of business, most of the time you don’t have to deal with customer service with an unhappy customer. Even if the product that they purchased is not working properly or up to their expectations, if their experience during the service was a positive one, they feel inclined to believe that the company will take care of their issue and get it corrected. At Z&Z Medical we always choose an approach of understanding the customers’ needs as well as being courteous in our actions. Most people are honest, so it is never our approach to question what the customer is saying or accuse them of not knowing what they’re talking about. An open ear and concerned attitude to a customer with a problem will go along way to establishing a good relationship. When they feel that their problem is the utmost concern to the individual that they are talking too, it puts their mind at ease. Once that relationship has been established, the customer will be much more understanding and patient should problems arise after the fact. This happens naturally as a result of the sales or service technician making them feel important. The customer then feels inclined to offer the same feeling of understanding to that business when things go wrong. If the sales or service tech was unprofessional or rude during the sale or course of business, the customer is very quick to take the attitude of “I want it resolved NOW”. This is just one small reason we feel it important to offer good customer service during the course of business. You don’t have to be a dish rag, but some sincere concern and courtesy will pay big dividends in the long run.
Now what about the situation we all hate, an unhappy customer. This usually is one of the most uncomfortable and stressful situations when it comes to customer service. When dealing with an unhappy customer, the goal needs to be to convert them to a happy and loyal customer. For this to happen, good customer service is critical. Sometimes I think companies take the attitude of “just give the customer their money back and they’ll be happy”. It sounds good but if the customer is upset over a bad sales experience and the customer service rep says, “no problem, here’s your money back, thanks for doing business with us” and sends them on their way, the customer might be left with a bad taste in their mouth and their bad experience might have just gotten worse.
At Z&Z Medical we approach an unhappy customer with the understanding that they have a problem, and it is our ultimate goal to rectify that problem. If we can rectify the problem, all will be good in both worlds. If we can’t rectify it in a manner that is acceptable to the customer, the business could suffer far reaching effects of the customers dissatisfaction. We live in a time where every citizen has a microphone to speak to the world through multiple channels of social media. It’s amazing how many people use Google, and internet reviews before buying something or doing business with a company. That one bad review about your company on Google could cost you a lifetime of missed sales. This is why it becomes critical to convert every unhappy customer into a happy and satisfied customer. And sometimes converting unhappy customers to happy customers means, no matter what the cost. As a business owner or manager, you never want to lose money on a sale. So, when you get in a situation with an unsatisfied customer and the sale starts to go into the red, you must take a big picture look at the situation and make some critical decisions. My dad used to say that education costs money and the education and cost is not always academic. As always, I have found that my dad was correct. The education was that, if a customer isn’t satisfied, they will tell as many people in their circle of associates about their bad experience which may ultimately cost you future sales. The cost would be spending or doing whatever it takes to make that customer happy even if the problem wasn’t caused by your product. This could come in the form of a full refund or offering to cover the cost of down time or loss of revenue during the period of lost service due to your product failure. These costs of course have limitations, but I think you get my point. After all is said and done, you end up with a happy customer that will return for more business and share the good experience on their social platforms and the company will have a little less money in the company bank account for a short term.
I had a situation recently with a good customer that helps prove the point of spending money to keep a customer happy. The doctor bought an x-ray room and digital imaging equipment from our company. He called me one day and was getting bad images. After some troubleshooting, we discovered that the x-ray tube was bad and needed to be replaced. It was covered by a 12-month warranty but after doing some checking I found that we installed the room 14 months previous. Obviously, the tube was defective from the manufacture because there is no way it should have malfunctioned in that short period with only moderate use. So, we had a customer that needed a $3,800 tube that was only 14 months old. I knew that if I asked him to pay for it, my company wouldn’t sell another piece of equipment to a Chiropractor in my state for quite some time. I made the painful decision to buy an x-ray tube and charge him nothing. We ended up with a very happy and satisfied customer. The customer knew that my company paid for the tube out of our pocket, and I know he made sure to share that with many of his colleagues, just as he would have done if we would have left him as an unhappy customer. In the end I believe we both won, and we now have a customer for life.
Education costs money.
It’s easy to offer customer service, but the better plan is to offer good customer service.