Extreme Customer Service

That’s the headline on the cover of the March 2 Business Week.

It caught my eye, since this is a topic we talk about frequently, both among our team members and with our clients. We’re all focusing on doing the little things – and sometimes the big things – to make sure we’re taking good care of the clients we have. That’s reflected in the actual title of the Business Week article, “When Service Means Survival.”

The article leads with a story about a customer of Hertz rental cars. He’s a loyal customer – until he can no longer find someone to check him in quickly with the hand-held, run-to-your-car approach during a rental return. The problem? Recent layoffs left the company short staffed and no one was available to do curbside returns. The result? A loyal customer is now looking to switch rental car companies. As we all know, when getting to the plane, every minute counts.

The problem comes when a company is faced with a need to downsize its work force. Companies with the best customer service satisfaction – many of whom have been through downturns before – know that sacrificing in this area will have long-term results, both in reputation and name awareness.

The solution is to get more out of the customer service people you’ve got by cross-training and providing them with tools to do even more for customers.

In the senior care business this may mean making sure all staff who interact with the public – from receptionist and wait staff to maintenance people and management – are trained to handle questions quickly and efficiently and resolve problems. It may mean preparing your staff to wear multiple hats, too. Receptionists helping wait tables, housekeepers answering phones – these are the sort of cross-over tasks that top-performers are training and preparing their staff to take on with even greater competence and efficiency.

The truly savvy manager will lead by example, motivating employees to cross out of their typical job role to an area that may be outside their comfort zone - all in the name of exceptional customer service. Staff who see the Executive Director busing tables, for example, likely won't be thinking the job is beneath them.

Going the extra mile means getting the top level execs involved, too. One anecdote in the article mentioned a woman who was waiting for a UPS delivery that was very late. She happened to be an avid social networker – a person who lets her circle of friends know exactly what’s happening with her by using a program called Twitter. This program sends out text messages in real time to subscribers. This individual sent out a tweet (a twitter message) that she was getting very frustrated with UPS. One recipient happened to be a corporate exec of another company, having dinner with UPS’s CEO. The CEO got on the phone to the unhappy customer, connected her with the right people who scheduled her delivery at a satisfactory time, creating one very happy customer.

My guess? Hundreds – if not thousands – of people heard about this. One customer’s loyalty grew stronger; many others heard about it.

Today, perhaps more than ever, customers expect to be treated like royalty. They know that we need and value their business, and they expect to be shown respect in every transaction. Training your team – top to bottom – in providing “extreme customer service” is not a luxury. It’s a business essential.

aQuire Training offers customer service training for your frontline staff as well as managers. We’ll also assist you in building unique online customer service training that communicates your company’s message throughout your communities. Contact us to learn more!