Customer Service Becomes Hard to Define
Given the number of books and seminars, conferences and courses advertised these days, customer service seems a hot topic in business. It’s a good way, say experts, to “differentiate” one’s company from the crowded competition. Few really say what customer service is, beyond the implication that it’s whatever they, or their clients, are offering.
Given this past year’s calls and letters from readers, even consumers seem unsure, although they at least try to define it, using words such as attention and care, helpfulness and even efficiency. Some confuse attitude with product, citing some new services that make comfortable urban lives more comfortable: vans that shuttle people from airport to home for a flat fee, home deliveries of restaurant dinners, parking lots that will wash cars left with them.
What consumers do know is what’s not good customer service. Indeed, it’s said that two-thirds of the consumers who switch companies (whatever the business) switch because they didn’t like the service.
They know it’s not fake “services”--products and programs touted as serving customer needs but actually serving the purveyor, sometimes to the customer’s detriment. It’s not check “safekeeping,” whereby a bank, to its own advantage, will no longer return canceled checks. But consumers don’t want their checks held for them, with photocopies provided one at a time, after a long wait, and sometimes illegible when they’re needed for taxes or bookkeeping or proof of payment.
It’s not phone company contracts for inside wiring repairs, often overpriced, rarely needed. It’s not multiple yellow page books (another common complaint), either those of several competing companies, or those from just one company (business-to-business, business-to-consumer, maybe consumer-to-consumer). Hold all the “smart” products that sell more advertising: consumers want one big dumb yellow book containing everything.
It may not even be the kind of high retail “service” made famous by Seattle-based Nordstrom stores and widely copied by its upscale competitors. Some consumers like being followed around and offered scarfs to match sweaters and ties to go with shirts. Others judge it an annoyance, born more out of a store’s commission system than a wish to serve, and not always accompanied by other niceties.
Actually, few seem to expect good customer service from department stores any more, though they still complain that the few salespeople present never leave the cash register (even at Sears, which boasted that its everyday-low-prices policy would free employees to provide floor service). No one expects help at supermarkets, and usually none can be found.
The greatest criticism is drawn by banks--high service businesses, which advertise service above all, and generally disappoint. Pick a bank line, any bank line: half the people on it are muttering about switching banks and half are muttering that this is the bank they switched to. And however long the lines, none of the desk officers move to help out behind the counter.
Consumer complaints about such businesses show clear understanding that service is not a what but a how --company philosophy reflected in front-counter attitude. If two-thirds switch because of poor service, two-thirds of those mention rudeness--of tellers, salespeople, even dentists and their assistants conducting private conversations while waiting on them, of doctors, lawyers, hairdressers taking phone calls during their visit.
The consumer’s main concern, however, is lack of performance. It seems odd that one must point out that customer service involves actually performing the service offered, and performing it with care. And yet most photo developers run films through a machine, uninspected by the human eye, and let the consumer find and bring back the duds (that’s today’s “quality control”).
Magazine subscription services take orders and then refer customers to the magazine itself when the subscription doesn’t start or suddenly stops. Retailers, both discount and full service, sell small appliances, jewelry, even handbags, and refer consumers to the manufacturer when there’s a defect.
Sometimes what consumers think a matter of basic service, business considers an extra, unnecessary or impossible to provide. It took government regulation to make seat belts standard equipment in vehicles. Banking customers want better or at least some security at ATMs; instead, banks produce surveys showing that relatively few customers are killed, injured or robbed, considering the millions of ATM transactions.
It would be a real customer service--and not an unreasonable demand--if credit reporting bureaus would devise some way to check and guarantee the accuracy of all the information they file on consumers and then sell to creditors. And newspapers, magazines and broadcasters, which say they can’t check the truth of every ad they carry, could establish procedures to help consumers who may have been deceived by one.
Airlines can certainly keep a half dozen, even a dozen infant seats on every plane to guarantee the safety of traveling babies--a current public concern. But who will fight for it? Consumers no longer seem to expect much service from airlines: They can’t even get seats at the advertised rates.
Good customer service may not even take a lot of people and a lot of handling. Some businesses often mentioned for helpful and efficient service are self service (Toys R Us is one, Builders Emporium another).
It may not require people at all. One real banking service today is the 24-hour phone line, often computerized, whose existence recognizes that many people do their bank business at night and that they’re wise to do so. This is the ultimate customer service, helping the consumer stay away from the business entirely and do as much as possible, easily, for himself.
