9 Ways to Deliver Common Sense Customer Service

I really enjoy a visit to David Zinger’s site. He gets lots of folk involved in what employee engagement means. Like David, I believe that engagement is essential for the delivery of great service. Another guy who thinks the same is Phil Gerbyshak. Here are Phil’s 9 ways to deliver common sense customer service. Headlines only – take a trip to David’s excellent website for a bit more detail.

Enjoy

1. First impressions matter (a lot!)
2. Tune the customer in and the world out – When your customer is talking, listen to what they’re saying.
3. Please and thank you still count – Remember those manners your parents taught you? Use them…ALL THE TIME!
4. You don’t know everything (but you better still find the answer) – When you read it, you know it’s true.
5. Customers aren’t always right (but they are always the customer)
6. People’s names are like gold (learn them fast)
7. Your name matters too – Take a few moments to introduce yourself too.
8. Complaints are great– Complaints are an opportunity to fix what’s wrong.
9. Service recovery matters (a lot!)

No problem at all

As you know we like to feature great customer experience stories, here’s a good one.

We’re in the latter stages of a big building project at home. By necessity things have been intrusive and disruptive, but we’re now doing things like choosing bathroom fittings, and tiles.

A visit to a tile showroom in Hackbridge called All Tile Ceramics, proved to be an interesting experience. We looked at loads of tiles. We asked loads of questions. It was clear that we were on a tight budget. Time was invested in us; our questions were answered politely and professionally without once making us feel like we didn’t know what we were talking about (which we didn’t). Samples were provided for us to take away and look at in context.

All of this was topped off with “No problem at all”. It didn’t sound forced, didn’t sound fake. It sounded like what we were asking for was exactly that, no problem at all. Unsurprisingly we didn’t go anywhere else; we bought what we needed from All Tile Ceramics. They took our order politely, set realistic expectations around delivery times (which they subsequently exceeded). They even took my money in a friendly way. And they helped Carole load the tiles into the car on collection. No problem at all.

That’s almost the end of the story…

Turns out my measuring skills aren’t as good as I thought they were. Yesterday I called the shop and enquired about lead times. I was told if I ordered the following day, the extra tiles we needed would be there within a couple of days. Today I called the tile shop again and ordered another box of tiles. Three hours later as I was preparing to go out, I got a phone call. “We’ve been to the warehouse, your tiles are here for you to collect when you want them.” OK, so the timing of their phone call was a coincidence but hey, that’s quick service. I don’t doubt the warehouse run may have included other errands but it felt to me like this was being done just for me. Personal service – one of the key elements that our readers say makes a great customer experience.

I collected and paid for the tiles later in the day. I thanked the guys at All Tile Ceramics for their friendly, quick service. “No problem at all.”

Good work, great experience.