Short Guide to Customer Service
Chris Croft
Chris Croft, has an Engineering
Degree from Cambridge and an
MBA, worked as a senior manager in
manufacturing for 10 years and then
as a university lecturer for fiveyears
before starting his own training
company in 1995. Since then he has
trained over 80,000people, and his
free email tips are sent to 11,000
people (www.free-management-tips
.co.uk). He is featured on www.lynda
.comwhere he presents courses on
project management, assertiveness,
time management, and happiness.
Croft_Customer_163714.indd 1
Abstract: Why is customer service important (it is the
main way that most organizations are judged by their
customers), how to get repeats and recommendations,
why organizations tend to be bad at it, how to do the ba-
sics (including cleanliness, reception, first impressions,
and phone answering), how to get the delight factor, and
the role of management, including setting up systems,
improving systems, mystery shoppers, and getting people
to care.
Key words: delight, complaints, process, management,
first impressions, customer types, telephone, motivation,
creativity
Why Is Customer Service Important?
Generalizing Out
Customers generalize out from the first contact. They as-
sume that the whole organization is like the first person
they meet. This might be one of your lowest paid and
least trained people!
And they judge that person in the first 10 seconds.
And they dont like to change their mind easily later. So
that first 10 seconds of contact had better be well thought
out and well trained in.
Why are people so quick to judge?
Because in the jungle, where we came from and kind
of still are, you have to assess situations and other crea-
tures rapidly.
Why judge an organization on the service you get at
the beginning?
Because the beginning is when they are supposed to
be at their BEST. Once theyve got you as a customer
theyll probably start to take you for granted, so if they
dont start really well its all going to be downhill.
Also, its much easier to assess service (friendly? Keep
you waiting?) than it is to assess the real quality of what
you get (is a car mechanic or a chef or a dentist or a fi-
nancial advisor really any good? Hard to tell!).
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 Short Guide to Customer Service
So, like it or not, they will assess you on
service, and mostly on the first bit of ser-
vice from the first person they meet.
Its a Major Competitive Factor
How do organizations try to out-do each
other?
Price?
Quality?
Range of services?
Speed of delivery?
Most people if asked wouldnt even put cus-
tomer service on this list! But it should be...
Well, competing on price is not going to
make you rich, itll just cut your margins
and get you customers who are difficult.
Competing on quality is not going to be
easy, because these days most competitors
are already excellent, and if your quality is
poor you are already out of the game. And
to be utterly brilliant on quality will take a
lot of development and probably price you
out of most of the market.
Note: for low price and for high quality
there are niches, but for most players these
arent great plans.
Niches also exist for large range of prod-
ucts or services, but again this is a difficult
one to choose if its not naturally where
you are.
Speed of serviceyes, this is currently
a major competition ground, because price
and quality have gone. JIT, Lean, and so on
are all about reducing delivery lead times.
Excellent, do these. They wont be as easy
as getting your customer service sorted out
though! And why not do both!?
The advantage of competing on customer
service is that its relatively cheap, and...
most organizations are hopeless at it!
Why?? See Why dont organizations get
it right? section.
The Route to Repeats
Getting new customers is very expensive.
Much better to keep selling to your exist-
ing ones.
Why would an existing customer decide
to go elsewhere? Research shows that over
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half of the customers who leave do so be-
cause of Perceived Indifference.
Not pricethey have already chosen to
be in your price band: a BMW buyer wont
go to Skoda because BMW costs more (and
he didnt realize?!), and a Skoda buyer wont
go to BMW because of price (!), and a BMW
buyer wont go to Audi because of price
they are near enough for it to be irrelevant.
Similarly it wont be quality, thats al-
ready fine for both.
No, it is usually something to do with
having upset them, or at least having not
made them feel welcome and important. If
you are indifferent they will start to shop
around, maybe looking for an excuse to
change. The excuse may be a few pounds
saved, but thats not the real reason. And
now you have the expensive task of getting
in a replacement customer...
Worse than just this
They will Tell Others
Unhappy customers tell 11 other people,
some of whom might be really impor-
tant people. You wont even know that
this is happening. Only 4 percent of un-
happy customers complain, so you prob-
ably wont have a clue why your work is
drying up. Youll probably blame it on the
market...
Every complaint you get means that 24
other people were unhappy and didnt tell
you. But they did tell 11 others, so thats
264 people they have told; a total of 288
people who wont buy from you. If you get
10 complaints thats a sign that nearly 3,000
people have heard bad things about you! So
it might be time to fix whatever is causing
those complaints...
Recommendations
New customers often come from recom-
mendations. Where do most of yours come
from? If they dont come from recommen-
dations, then maybe they should!
What would make someone recommend
a product or service? Not just that it is OK,
but it has to have a Delight Factor (see
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 Short Guide to Customer Service
Getting the delight factor section for the
details on how).
The delight factor isnt expensive, it just
needs some creativity to invent it and then
some organization to make it happen.
Nicer Life for You
A different and perhaps more interesting
question than Why should an organization
give good service? is Why should an indi-
vidual give good service?
Depending on what drives them, giving
good service will give either more job sat-
isfaction (the type of employee we want)
or less hassle (a less good employee!). Ei-
ther way, theyd be mad not to do it, once
they have it explained to them. And of
course if the organization can make good
service part of the process, it is nicer for
all of the employees. Nobody wants to
face angry, or even unexcited, customers
all day.
Internal Customers Too
Good service to the internal people who
you serve is just as important, because
bad service leads to time wasted doing
things twice, morale lost in conflict, and
a worse service reaching the external cus-
tomers (if what you do doesnt impact ex-
ternal customers somehow, then why do
you exist?).
Escalation
My final reason for being obsessed by cus-
tomer service is that if you dont do it some-
one else will. And if its inevitable, why not
be the first?
The partners of a large local law firm once
said to me We dont need to open at lunch
time because none of the other lawyers in
town are open then. Why should we upsetall
our people by introducing lunch rotas etc?
...I think you know the answer!
Why Dont Organizations
Get It Right?
A tricky question. Here are some possible
reasons. Are any of them yours?
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Not Intellectually Interesting
Most managers ignore customer service
as an area to manage because it is bor-
ing. There are almost no academic theo-
ries about it, no clever books or thinkers
working on it, no qualifications about NVQ
level 2 (Do you want fries with that?).
Much more fun to think about market-
ing strategies, trade fairs, pricing elasticity
models, product life extensions, and so on.
Not Core
Whatever you do or sell, it is not customer
service. It is food, or surveying, or haircuts,
or the design of mobile phone software.
Service is always there, but it is never at
the front. Usually theres nobody actually
in charge of it, were all just supposed to do
it, but we never quite get around to it.
Front Line Is Lower
The people who are most involved in deliv-
ering a great service are the front line, who
tend to be lower paid, lower status, and
may appear less important. They arent
less important!
Needs Discipline
To getall of the basics right all of the time
(one mistake and youve lost. One toilet
roll not replaced, one ringing phone not
answered, one name spelt wrong) takes a
lot of discipline. Not much fun!
Needs Creativity
To delight your customers needs creative
thinking, and thats hard. Theres no sys-
tem for that. Lets not bother!
Needs Constant Escalation
Yesterdays delight factor is now expected.
So you need to think of a new delight fac-
tor. Thats hard!
Not Recognized as a Problem
As most customers dont complain, as
discussed previously, you wont know if
youve got a problem. Until it is too late and
there arent any customers...
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