By Charles Nzete
‘Don’t use technology as stand-in for the human touch’ – Stefanie Amini, 2013.
The imperatives of high service levels in building and sustaining customer loyalty cannot be overstated. In this age of competition where the minutest of factors can cause an astronomical loss in market share, the import of paying attention to details with respect to service delivery by organizations has become expedient.
A major hindrance to the organic growth of businesses in Nigeria is the inability of organizations to develop and sustain high service levels. This has also largely accounted for why they fail. Good Customer Service transcends prompt service delivery. It involves an understanding of the fact that without the customer, there will be no ‘need to be satisfied’. Amini said, ‘customers actually pay salaries and assist organizations make profit’. Organizations must therefore avoid treating customers as ciphers and make them feel appreciated.
Customer oriented organisations around the globe celebrate Customer Service Week in the first week of October annually. The week is dedicated internationally to celebrate customer service as well the persons that deliver and support customers on a daily basis. The event, though meant to celebrate the provider of service, offers a once in a year opportunity for organizations and companies to make a statement. Organizations could use the occasion to ‘wow’ the customer. Some do budget handy sums of money for it. In some institutions, particularly Deposit Money Banks, the hallmark of the event was that during the week, tellers and other front office personnel in the organization were made to dress like chefs.
A customer once wondered aloud if there was any direct benefit to those who were being celebrated. He said spending sums to make front office staff look like chefs and clowns before their customers was sheer profligacy. In his words, the huge sums spent by the bank in making those dresses could as well have been used to procure customized mugs and given the very first 50 customers that come in to transact business that week. His organization is not alone in this as the celebration has gradually been embraced by more companies. Truth is, his view did not tally with the very purpose of the exercise meant to celebrate the provider of service and not the receiver, but in between, there seems a compelling need, in these austere times for companies to exploit the occasion to their advantage. Sincerely, in view of the peculiarity of our culture and economy, it is really not out of place for companies to tweak the budget for Customer Service Week a bit to accommodate the customer given the need to retain market share while breaking new grounds in a recessed economy like ours. In line with the earlier suggestion, t-shirts with inscriptions on types of services rendered and presented as souvenirs to customers could go a long way. Customers will this way, not feel like mere statistics.
As recession bites harder and production costs keep spiraling, profits are bound to be reduced, if not eroded. Aside the increasing cost of production occasioned by the increased cost of sourcing forex for import dependent manufacturing outfits, there has also been a lull in demand in view of the lack of purchasing power in the hands of the citizenry. For products that have veritable substitutes, passing the increased cost to consumers by way of increasing prices could be suicidal; as demand has become perfectly price elastic. In the same vein, reducing prices to sustain customer loyalty in the face of increased cost of production is not to be contemplated. Sustaining customers’ loyalty would therefore require concerted efforts at improving service levels. Stefanie Amini in her, ‘Five Essentials for Great Customer Service’ identified ‘Serving’ as that element which involves the actual fulfillment of an organizations promise. Serving here transcends the conventional exchange of money and goods but to ‘offer them something that is totally unexpected – give them the ‘wow’ factor’. She advocates the need to keep customers happy and to think of ways to elevate the company ‘above the competition’. Every opportunity must be exploited to ensure that customers are respected and understood.
It is noteworthy that technology cannot always be a substitute for ‘human touch’. Too often, companies have become disconnected from their customers in our online world. Jersey Graves, while sharing his thoughts on Alimi’s critical elements of customer service, advised that when a ‘company loses the human touch’ that it is known for; ‘it will lose its soul and become a machine that will be unrecognizable to those it has served for years’.
As competition gets stiffer while purchasing power and number of customers keep getting leaner, companies must be dynamic and adopt workable strategies to stay afloat. Any action that will leave a customer with an unpleasant experience must be avoided. When customers are satisfied, they make repeat purchases. To this end, companies and organizations that rely on the customers’ patronage for survival must ensure that anybody who is in regular contact with customers must be endowed with the requisite skills.
Nzete wrote from Ajegunle, Lagos
