September 20, 2007 3:45 PM

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10 Ways to Improve Customer Service
By Marcie MacRae

If you have been in the service industry, you have dealt with customer problems, calls, complaints – all those normal issues you deal with – those normal issues that can be extremely frustrating. In my fifteen years in customer service I have always had one question: How do I make every customer happy?

Over the last four months we have been rolling out, fixing, creating, etc. our Kaizen Products Online Store. If anyone has ever designed and launched an online store – you know how difficult it can actually be. I received a call from a customer who was very frustrated with a problem that they had from our website. I tried my best to assure this customer that I would take care of the problem, place the order and anything else that would need to be done, quickly efficiently and with the nicest tone I had. This did not make this customer happy, so I just tried to be as nice as possible and serve this customer to the best of my ability. Did I do this correctly? Could I have done something else?

I worked at a company that insisted that customer service is first second to none. They required you to solve every customer complaint, every customer problem, right down to giving the product for free. In the situation I described above, I would have gotten a bad review, and then a low score on my customer service and possibly written up. So I ask again, could I have done something differently?

How do I make every customer happy? How do I improve my customer service? Will improving my customer service make customers happy? I think about this a lot, for me it is a major factor in feeling good about my job, if my customers are not happy, I tend to be not happy. Because I believe that I can only change myself, and I try hard not to try to change others, I look at this as the only way I have to make the situation better.

Improve my customer service, or better yet – improve myself. In trying to achieve this, I was reading over the 10 Commandments of Improvement. I thought I would share this because I know I am not the only one who struggles in Customer satisfaction:

10 Commandments of Customer Service

1. Abandon Fixed Ideas –
No one person is the same, what I may think is helpful and nice may seem sarcastic and detrimental to another. In the situation above I said that I tried to do everything in the nicest tone possible. That could be perceived as sarcasm. That could be why the customer felt that I wasn’t assisting them to the best of my ability. Just because what you are saying to your customer would be what you would want to hear does not mean that you are saying what they want to hear.

2. Think of ways to make it possible –
Good customer service people are always thinking of ways to make solving the customer issue possible. Never stop thinking. A customer called, they had created an online account but there was a glitch, something that would not let them place the order. Instead of receiving all the information from them, I logged into our customer database and double checked that I had all the correct information. The customer was very pleased and it saved him time and energy. “I apologize for the inconvenience – what can I do to make this better for you – how can I help you” If you can’t think of how to make it possible, ask, most likely the customer will tell you what they want.

3. No Excuses Needed –
Well, there is no excuse for poor customer service. Whether it is that I had a bad day, you are really busy or that customer was really mean to me, I should never be mean or make excuses.
I received bad customer service at a store I frequent often for work. Because I was doing this exercise already I was looking at what the issue was while it was happening. The person was short handed, I watched the other associate walk out the back door, his hand wrapped and bleeding. Realizing this I stood and waited for her to finish what she was doing patiently. After a minute she looked up and rudely said, “I’ll be with you in a moment”. Then she continued to say that to me, after the fourth time she sighed and asked me what I wanted – without waiting for my full answer - she started spouting off what she could do for me. Then she came over to the counter and said, “Sorry we’re short handed and I am really busy”. She stated this three more times during my order, and I realized that the more she stated it, the more frustrated I got. Her excuses made me feel like an imposition, this is not good customer service.

4. Go for the Simple Solution, Not the Perfect One –
Make the customer happy in a simple way. Listen to them, know what they want and try to give them what they want. It seems simple, as I think about it, it is simple. If the lady yesterday had asked me what I needed, and then listened to what I needed, and then tried to give me what I needed to the best of her ability, I would have left much happier, and I probably would not have this pit in my stomach because I have to go back there today. That seems pretty simple, it also would have saved me and her time and energy.

5. Correct Mistakes Right Away –
No matter who made the mistake, fix it. Customers do not want you to tell them that employee X made that mistake, and they need to fix it, they want to know that their needs are important. Even if you don’t have the ability to fix the mistake yourself, take the information on what happened, what they want done about it and assure them that the problem will be fixed and you will personally let them know that it was fixed.

6. Use Your Wits Not Your Wallet –
One of the people I respect the most in this field is always coming up with ways to make the customer feel better and solve their needs at the same time. She knows what she is allowed to do – and she can read a person very well to know how far to go. I notice as my years in service increase my wits get better, and I tend to use my wallet less. I watch everyone when I go out and try to learn what it is that they do to make me happy – to make others happy.

7. Problems are Opportunities –
Take from all the customer complaints that you have had and learn from them. This is basically what I am doing here, looking at the times when I had customer complaints and trying to see what I could have done to make it better so that the next time I can make it better.

8. Repeat ‘Why?’ Five Times –
My customer from a previous job got charged the wrong price on an item. As was policy at this store I refunded her the amount of her product, wrote up the slip and thanked her for her business. But she was still unhappy with my service.
Why? Because this is not what she wanted me to do
Why? Because she felt insulted by the policy – she wanted to pay for her item
Why? Because she is not the customer that this policy was written for
Why? Because not all customers are the same
Why? Because customers have different needs
What could I have done in this situation? Probably asked her what I could do to make the situation better, given her a choice, and listened a little better.

9. Seek Ideas from Many People –
I told you about one of the people in my past that has influenced me. There are many others – the idea is to take from all of them, and I can say that I have taken and that I still take – to make myself better. Taking the time to watch your peers, your supervisors and your employees do there job can be a wealth of information. I have even put someone on hold to ask how to deal with the issue at hand. And I have to say – I have put someone on hold to have someone else deal with them. That in itself is improvement, knowing when I am not the person that will make that customer happy.

10. There is No End to Improvement –
Every day we deal with customers. And every day I ask myself how can I make every customer happy. The only answer I can come up with is “With Continuous Improvement”.