Just A Customer

Good customer service means realizing that the customer is the person who pays your salary, they are the ones who will determine the success of your business. Being self-employed, I realize the importance of a customer.

Recently, I was in a situation where the customer service I received was appalling. First the person who was waiting on me made me feel like I was taking time from their day. I truly felt like I was bothering them. They didn’t seem to have any real concern for the situation I needed help with. As I was explaining my situation to them, their phone rang and they immediately picked up the phone without so much as an “excuse me”. I just looked at them, to shocked to even say anything to them. They carried on a conversation and then when they were finished hung up the phone and just looked at me as if to say, “are you still here.” To make a long story short, my situation is still not resolved. I left the store vowing never to shop there again. I couldn’t believe the way I was treated as a customer.

The Importance of Customer Service
A couple of days later I saw the following on a poster and I thought whoever wrote this truly understood the importance of a customer:

A customer is the most important person in any business
A customer is not dependent upon us. We are dependent upon him.
A customer is not an interruption of our work. He is the purpose of it.
A customer does us a favour when he comes in. We aren’t doing him a favour by waiting on him.
A customer is an essential part of our business, not an outsider.
A customer is not just money in the cash register. He is a human being with feelings and deserves to be treated with respect.
A customer is a person who comes to us with his needs and his wants. It is our job to fill them.
A customer deserves the most courteous attention we can give him.
He is the lifeblood of this and every business.
He pays our salary.
Without the customer we would have to close up.
Don’t ever forget it.

The Most Important Person
When you look at all aspects of running a business, when it comes down to it without your customer you have no business. It doesn’t matter what type of business you are running; the whole purpose is provide a service or a product for someone and that someone is your customer. You can have the best product or the best service in the world, but if your clients don’t have a good experience with you then you can be sure it will have an impact on your bottom line. We all know what happens, the customer just does not come back.

We Are Dependent
What makes you better than your competition? What is different about your business, why would a patron come to you rather than go down the street? These are critical questions to the success of your business. If you don’t have the answer then you should stop and consider the questions. More importantly, your employees should know and realize the answers to these questions. If your employees don’t have a full understanding of your competition and the impact that they have then your business will not stand a chance.

The Purpose
If your sole purpose is to make money then most likely you will not succeed. You have to give the best to your clients. They are not an interruption to your day, they are the reason for your business! They should always be treated with respect and valued for what they give to you. If you put that first then the money will follow. But, if you take shortcuts or cut corners for the sake of profit then your profit will actually shrink.

A Favor
Our attitude towards a client will make a big difference. Do you see them as doing you a favor or is your attitude one that sees you doing them a favor. There is a big difference in how a person will feel in direct relation to your attitude. When you think of a time when you received outstanding service you will identify the attitude of the person was a main factor. Even if your situation was not resolved, if someone listens to you and explains to you the issue then you are okay with that. There is a saying that is so true: “people don’t care what you know until they know that you care.”

Not An Outsider
If you do not listen to what the needs of your consumers are you may find that you will not be selling very much. You see you are filling a need and if you don’t fill that need then your prospective client will someone else to fill their needs.

Pays Your Salary
If everyone could just realize this one point, if could change everything about customer service. Many people treat their boss as the most critical person at their work, but if that changed to the customer being the most important, oh how different it would be!

What Does This Have To Do With Motivation
A lot because how we deal with others is more a reflection of how we demonstrate our inner worth than the actual application of a business. A reflection of our inner self through great customer service means we give value to others because we value our own values; these values also mean that we care about service to others where the adage “what we give we receive” comes into full force.

Remember This
The more we demonstrate how much we care in the service to others also reflects how much we think about our own values and ethics. And, in direct application to a business, it doesn’t matter what position you hold, without your customers you would have no job, no business. I would encourage you to print a copy of this and share it with others who deal directly with customers.

Sometimes in business, we get hung up on inventory, business results, and other trivial matters. If we want to improve our business, we should first improve our customer service by simply asking ourselves if our service to others is what we would want if we traded places.

How do you treat your co-workers. Do you treat them in a manner that you want to be treated? Are you there to offer them a service, to help them.

And what about your family. Are you always willing to help out or is your expectation one that they should be helping you.

You are who you are in every situation whether that be in a job or at home with your own family. Serving others with importance can move you towards success in many ways.

Inspirational Quotes for Reflection:
“The purpose of a business is to create a mutually beneficial relationship between itself and those that it serves. When it does that well, it will be around tomorrow to do it some more. John Woods

“If you are able to provide a remarkable service for that customer, he or she will undoubtedly refer similar customers to you (it’s interesting how people will often have friends who are similarto themselves).”Wuyen Hsu

“If you get everybody in the company involved in customer service, not only are they ‘feeling the customer’ but they’re also getting a feeling for what’s not working.” Penny Handscomb

“If the shopper feels like it was poor service, then it was poor service. We are in the customer perception business.” Mark Perrault

“Consumers are statistics. Customers are people.” Stanley Marcus

“Don’t try to tell the customer what he wants. If you want to be smart,be smart in the shower. Then get out, go to work and serve the customer!” Gene Buckley