Service Soliloquy – 30/06/12
Aderogba Adewusi
There is gain in serving and doing it well. That is exactly what I thought should be the attitude of front line staff attending to customers in all organizations. Companies parade themselves to be customer centric but failing to keep with the peculiarities known with such stance. Hmmm, it is very disheartening to know that customers of diverse organizations had continued to suffer in silence all along. The level of decadence in the service industry cannot be imagined. The question is “when will customers get what they deserve?” Maybe this would be necessary to answer a more rampant murmur of undiscerning service providers who continue to mutter “customers are always complaining”. For the benefit of doubt and useful information of any serious organization that wants to continue enjoying patronage, customers won’t stop complaining. The reason is not farfetched. Customers can only smile and eulogize your organization when your people are ready to satisfy their needs without pushing them around. Some organizations even push their customers to the wall with unnecessary policies and service bottlenecks.
Go to any service outlet and before long, you will come across a customer who is aggrieved. Several customers testify to how bad they had been treated at their most patronized shops. These shops are not limited to the mundane business offices found in low class environments. One would be surprised at how employees of the so called giants of the service world fail to delight their customers as well. It happened to me before and I could not imagine that this is happening to most customers. I had seen where customers were abused by the employees of companies they patronize regularly. Oh, that is not even an uncommon issue any longer; it is now so rampant in various service locations. I once watched a security man slap a customer because he did not join the queue. Should a customer get manhandled because he wants to contribute to the profitability that would reduce your companies overhead? No, Not at all; the act of advancing hostilities to a customer is barbaric and uncalled for. I thought to myself as I stood there, “I would sack this staff immediately if I had the chance”. Fortunately for him, the customer was not ready to press charges. He would have known what it means to commit assault on a customer.
In another of my covert shopping experience, I overheard a sales girl complained about the customers. Her annoyance was that they kept coming at a time she was to close shop. That was rather sad. Nobody forced her to take the job in the first place. There are many others looking for jobs that would take more time than hers but have not been able to secure one. In my opinion, employees are more humble when they don’t have a job. Immediately they get one, they begin to give excuses for failing in what they had been employed to do. Maybe I am wrong, but the obvious dictates support for my assumptions. My views had witnessed various situations concurring that customers continue to suffer in silence. I had asked over and over again; “Is it that hard to serve customers excellently?”
Surprisingly, I keep getting answers supporting the fact that customers can actually be well served to the extent of being delighted. So, what is delaying this kind of service? It should not just be lip service. More than 95% of our customers should testify to excellent service. This is because just one complaint from the customers to the wrong set of people can ruin the whole business. Or have we forgotten how hard to get these customers. I am really upset that organizations continue to milk the customers without much thought about how they feel. It is believed that the management has a lot to do with how their employees treat customers. As such, the employees alone should not be left to determine how customers get served. The management team should always allow for proper training of employees and their involvement in policy formulation. This is one of the ways by which customer complaints can reduce. There should never be a time when organizations focus on the Pareto few should now jeopardize the larger percentage of customers. Who can tell anyone of them that are neglected today that would become highly significant amongst the vital few tomorrow?
© SuccessDrive Customer Care Management Series 2012.
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