We know that service is anything other than physical goods that is valuable to customers. This customer perspective leads to the Law of Service - the most critical relationship in all service work.
1. Accessibility. Customers expect prompt and efficient service. This means that they must be able to get to someone in the organization who can help them. Whether it is waiting for initial processing or talking to someone about fixing a problem, they do not expect to go through a maze of paperwork and red tape. They want their questions answered and their needs met as soon as possible.
2. Courtesy. Customers expect to be treated in a professional manner. They react poorly to rudeness. Customers expect their property to be treated with respect as well. Employees should treat customers' luggage, cars, and so on as if it were their own. They also expect a neat and clean appearance.
3. Personal attention.Customers want to be treated as unique individuals. They want to know that the company they are dealing with cares about them as individuals. They expect to be told what services will be provided, and they expect someone to care about their problems (and do something about them).
4. Empathy. Empathy is a person's ability to see and feel things from someone else's point of view. Customers expect that service employees will understand what they care about. Customers do not expect to be treated as though their presence is an imposition on the employee or an interruption to an otherwise pleasant day.
5. Job knowledge. Customers expect that employees will know the facts about their job and their company. They expect honest answers. On some special requests, they may accept an employee going to a supervisor for an answer, provided that the answer comes quickly.
6. Consistency. Customers expect to get the same answer no matter who they talk to. If everyone meets the criteria for job knowledge, there is no reason for two different employees to give conflicting answers. There are some instances where a variety of treatment may be acceptable, but only when they see and understand an obvious and compelling reason for a difference in treatment.
7. Teamwork. The company may be composed of many different departments with different goals and methods of operation, but to customers it is a single entity. They do not expect internal turf battles to affect them nor do they expect to be passed from one department to another for answers to simple questions.
Seven Deadly Sins,
1. Leave someone expecting a reply. Whenever we tell someone we will call or send something, we must follow through and do it. Even when we don't have an answer or anything else useful to say to a customer, we can call the customer to say that we have no new information yet and are still working on it. It is important that the person not feel forgotten or ignored.
2. Argue with a customer. If you remember the old saying," The customer is always right," you already know about this sin. Even when customers are completely wrong, service providers do not get any points for proving it. Taking an argumentative tone with a customer puts a service person in a poor position from the start.
3. Present a dirty or unprofessional look. This is one of the best ways to get off to the wrong start with a customer. Dirty facilities or unprofessional-looking employees immediately undermine the overall credibility of any service organization. Cleanliness will almost never be cited as a particularly good service quality, but the lack of cleanliness will be noticed immediately.
4. Give conflicting or incorrect information. Nothing is more frustrating to a customer than hearing two conflicting pieces of information from two different people in the same organization. Customers expect each of us to be perfectly up-to-date and knowledgeable about practically everything to do with our products. When we don't know something, we are much better off tactfully admitting our lack of knowledge and promising to call them back.
5. Argue with a fellow worker in front of a customer. As human beings, we will certainly have disagreements with fellow staff members. There is a time and a place for working out these differences. It may even take a screaming match to work it out-but not in front of customers. We can almost always wait to discuss it until the customer has left. We can ask our co-worker to go into a back room where we can discuss the problem, come to an agreement and then go back to deal with the customer as a team.
6. Imply that a customer's needs are unimportant or trivial. Our customers may be the fiftieth person that day that we have had to deal with on the same service need, but to them, this is the first time that day they've needed it. The worst thing we can do at that moment is to trivialize their needs or make it seem as if they are an imposition on our otherwise carefree day.
7. Pass the buck. A common practice in service organizations, especially those with large bureaucracies, passing the buck can be very frustrating to customers. Customers already tense because something has or may go wrong, and we double that pressure by sending them through a maze of red tape. The best way to avoid this is to be knowledgeable about who in the organization has the authority to help this person. If a supervisor is not immediately available, offer to have someone call the customer back.
Decide whether the following statements are true (T) or false (F).
- ________ Customers' property should be handled with care and respect at a restaurant.
- ________ Service workers are supposed to understand what customers are expecting of the service they are providing.
- ________Customers do not accept the situation where a service employee goes to seek a supervisor if he/she cannot answer the customers' questions.
- ________ The operation of a restaurant with different departments is still a single entity in customers' viewpoint.
- ________ If a service employee cannot have an answer immediately, he/she should tell the customer to forget or ignore it.
- ________ When customers are completely wrong, service workers need to say so to them and prove it.
- ________ If a service worker does not know an answer or information a customer is requesting, he/she must politely admit his/her lack of knowledge.
- ________ Service workers are never allowed to argue with each other at the workplace.
- ________ Service workers should sometimes point out to customers that their request is unimportant at all.
- ________ The best way to avoid passing the buck is to get a supervisor to solve the problem.
- Vocabulary
Fill in the blanks with NO MORE THAN three words taken from the text.
The law of service says that satisfaction is based on whether ___________ perceive that the ___________ is good or bad, and this judgment is based on their subjective attitudes, not necessarily on an objective evaluation of facts. Different customers may perceive the same ___________ in different ways, and even the same customer may perceive it differently at different times.
In general, customers have ___________basic expectations relating to restaurant staff's professionalism. They often expect ___________ service that does not let them wait or get through an amount of ___________. As ___________, they expect the restaurant staff to professionally pay individual attention to and care about them with the staff's ___________.
And while many acts may or may not be perceived poorly, there are seven ___________ that are sure to upset customers. One of the bad habits is to ___________ when customers have to go through a maze of paperwork and red tape in order to solve a problem.
Discuss the following questions with your friends.
- How can service organizations use this law of service to design better service delivery systems?
- Can you think of other rules enhancing good service delivery that are not mentioned in the text?
- What other things should service employees avoid?
