Customer Loyalty Begins and Ends with Staff

Some people just have more positive attitudes, upbeat "can-do" approaches to problems, and can make customers feel appreciated and important.

Even though the service sector declined slightly last month, it still carries the economy in many areas. Living in an area where hospitality is the main industry - the Charleston, S.C., area - I am well aware of this fact. Regardless of where you live, building customer loyalty with a high level of service is important.

A friend related a story which typified today's problems with consistently delivering the level of service required to build customer loyalty. She, a meeting planner holding a meeting at a major, upscale hotel chain, called from another location and asked a hotel employee to take care of a detail for a key member of the organization hosting the meeting. The all-too-familiar "That isn't my job … have to contact someone else" was what she heard.

In today's business environment no one can afford an employee treating a customer as if he is not important, indicating he should take his request or complaint to someone else, or more importantly having the customer feel she should take her business to another company.

Now, we have all experienced rude behavior or ineffective service at one time or another. It happens. As a matter of fact it might have even happened in your own company.

How do we stop this level of service that erodes customer satisfaction and reduces loyalty? Many think the answer is to either exhort employees - with slogans such as "customers first" or "customer-focused" - to care more about customers. One approach some use is to schedule a meeting to talk about "service." While these responses are very typical, all too often, they are too little and only marginally effective.

It is obvious that staff is the key to developing satisfied customers. For customers to feel employees are caring, compassionate, competent, and doing everything possible to satisfy their needs, it takes more than simply hiring people at random and expecting the proper behavior to occur.

Since the first step to service is staffing, it goes without saying that you have to hire people with service attributes. We all know there are many who are much better at delivering a high level of service than others. Some people just have more positive attitudes, upbeat "can-do" approaches to problems, and can make customers feel appreciated and important. If you are in the service business - and we all are whether we know it or not - "service attributes" constitute a key hiring or selection criteria. Click here to learn more.

How do you know if a potential employee has service attributes? You can observe the person during the interview, check references to find out how he served customers at previous jobs, and very importantly you can assess that person's attributes using pre-employment instruments. Specifically designed assessments are available to identify key customer service attributes of empathy, persistence, assertiveness, drive, organization, creativity, and maturity. They can predict how the employee will perform and you can even compare or benchmark him against your Service SuperStars. Click here to see an example of assessment report.

You must have enough highly motivated service providers at the right time. But cost considerations have forced tough choices. Many have made the unfortunate choice to staff not for peaks, but for valleys. While this may save labor expense in the short-term, it can lose customers and future profits. Have an ample number of people, with sufficient backup, in all positions at the time they are needed.

Even the highest motivated, most compassionate employees can't serve customers well unless they have the necessary skills. Employees must not only know how to solve problems, but also how to communicate well with customers. Ironically, all too often a great deal of effort is expended on developing sales skills necessary to acquire