Confirm the Problem Before Attempting to Solve It

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Confirm the Problem Before Attempting to Solve It

Written by Leanne Hoagland Smith

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Customer Service: The Frontline Makes Your Bottom Line

It happens all the time: A full-page ad is placed in a major monthly publication. The ad touts the service excellence of their product. Catchy phrases. Great promises. Major dollars are spent to create an implied image in the mind of the consumer. And it can vanish in a heartbeat if promises made are not promises kept-if the derived image cancels out the implied image!

Perhaps this has been your experience: You have been standing in line at the bank looking at a sign hanging on the wall that says "Our Customers Are Our #1 Priority" while the customer in front of you is yelled at by a teller for not having the proper forms needed for the transaction. Or perhaps you've had the interaction with a clerk who rolls her eyes when you ask one too many questions about the product. The point is: we will all talk about the derived image-not the glossy ad. Couple this "talk" with chat on the Internet and you've exponentially reached thousands.

Why should you care what your customers are saying?

It costs 6 to 8 times more to get a new customer than to keep an old one.
There is a 12% higher profit margin with your existing customers.
Companies that keep their existing customers enjoy a 9% higher growth rate than ones who don't.

It doesn't take much to make a negative impression. Here are some of the most common customer complaints: unprofessional staff; disinterested staff; bad attitudes matched with a sense of boredom; more enthusiasm for chatting with co-workers than with the customer and a lack of an ability to solve problems.

Your employees have probably had customer service training but perhaps you are still seeing customers leave. Why is this you ask? It's because leadership didn't take the time to find out how the customer service "rules" affect the actual customer. Here are ten tips to take your customer service from drab to fab:

1. The single most important thing you can do to increase customer satisfaction is to treat your employees well. One disgruntled employee can easily alienate dozens of customers. Find out what is wrong and fix it.

2. Keep employees in the loop so that they are in the know and FEEL like valued insiders. With the power of the Internet your employees can find out corporate news before you do. Don't let this happen to your company. Talk to employees often and in-person.

3. Teach employees to think of themselves as business consultants rather than employees. Empower them to make customer-pleasing decisions without having to call a supervisor.

4. Ask employees to change their viewpoint. Have them look at all customers as multi-million dollar businesses and treat them accordingly.

5. Embrace new ideas and reward innovation. Seek and act on advice from your frontline because most of the time they are the only contact a customer has with your company.

6. Recognize and reward each other. Think in 360 directions. A manager needs praise from a subordinate a much as from her boss. Encourage peer-to-peer recognition for helping each other resolve customer issues.

7. Constantly seek innovation. Ask everyone to study the competition and find out what they do that makes them better. The frontline will see what a higher-level manager will not.

8. Seek and act on customer feedback. Don't bother with customer surveys. Assign an employee or employees to scour the Internet for both positive and negative conversations about your company.

9. Make your current customers feel important. Offer them price cuts or coupons, make every transaction with them pleasant, communicate transparently and have a live person answer your phones, thanking the customer for his business .

10. Seek and reward referrals from current customers. One local chiropractor provides a free adjustment to any patient who refers someone else. She gets dozens of referrals every week and her practice thrives even during economic turmoil.

Don't just pay lip service to improving customer service. Good customer service is the linchpin to survival at any time but especially during difficult times. Start by treating your employees well, keeping them in the loop, and releasing them to do what it takes to send each customer away happy.

Late fall and the beginning of winter are times of year when many of us make those much-dreaded, but necessary visits to the family physicians. Possibly upon speaking directly with the doctor, we might have stated something like "I am not feeling well and my problem is (fill in the blank)" Usually, the doctor may respond with "OK, let's see what is going on."

Confirm the Problem
The physician does not provide an immediate solution, but rather begins a series of assessments to confirm why you are ill. These assessments may start with taking the temperature, to checking blood pressure to even issuing orders for additional diagnostic assessments such as blood work to X-rays. For the goal is to return you to good health and not have this particular problem reoccur.

The collected data from these diagnostic assessments provide greater clarity as to what the real problem is and helps to prevent the doctor from treating just the symptom. The key benefits from this approach are three-fold:

Conservation of resources
Sustainability of the solution
Creation of loyal patients or customers

Ensure the Health of Your Business
What would happen if individuals as well as organizations embraced this diagnostic solution model to ensure the health of their businesses?

The reason for this question is I have lost count of the times I have been called in to discuss a perceived problem (think illness) such as customer service. Yet from the very first discussion and sometimes my own observations, I can quickly learn the problem is usually a symptom of poor leadership (people) to ineffective processes or a combination of factors all resulting in what is perceived as a customer service problem. In business terms this is called a "silo or short term solution" if I had addressed only perceived customer service problem.

Using assessments is a viable tactic provided the assessments are proven and can quickly provide accurate answers. With change happening at lightening speed, there is a need for quickly ascertaining what is happening right now before another change affects the individual or the organization thus skewing the information received.

Even though these terms assessments and tests are used interchangeably, it is truly important to recognize the difference. Diagnostic assessments are truly different than tests and here is where language and our own definitions impact our perceptions. Tests are tools to measure what we personally know or do not know such as fill in the blank, choose the best response from a, b, c or d or answer true of false. Tests compare the right answer with the individual's knowledge.

Diagnostic assessments measure gaps between existing (where my health is right now) and desired results (where I want my health to be). These instruments provide a measurable benchmark from which to proceed. The collected data may confirm what is known or may reveal unknowns. And it is these unknowns that are potentially affecting the results in people, processes and strategies. When using diagnostic assessments, there is no right answer, but rather the data is what it is.

The major benefit, beyond knowing what is is, is that the consistent use of a continuous improvement model that begins with the use of proven assessments is sustainability. Far too often solutions are created based upon what someone thinks, hears or observes. These individual inputs carry their own biases and this affects the desired results.

What happens is pretty common place. The solution is crafted and fails. Another solution or series of solution takes its place. Sustainability of the solution simply does not happen. Failed solutions drain the resources of any organization or individual. Just look to all those failed New Year's Eve resolutions to see failed sustainability. This is why having a sustainable solution is far more beneficial.

With the quarter and the year quickly coming to an end, maybe now is the time to truly know through proven diagnostic organizational and personal assessments what is, is. By taking this action, it may help you truly work smarter and not harder unless you enjoy being one of those crazy busy sales people, small business owners or C Suite executives.

Check out Leanne Hoagland-Smith's book, click here.

Leanne Hoagland Smith
		About the author:
		Leanne Haogland-Smith has over 25 years in sales. Her true joy is selling and helping clients unlock the results that they want. She holds a core belief that the majority of answers are within each individual or organization and, sometimes, people just need an outside perspective to help them discover those answers. Leanne has written more than 1000 articles on sales and process improvement. Learn more about Leanne at www.processspecialist.com .