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COUNTER INTELLIGENCE (October 2007) |
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Thursday, 10 January 2008 |
Customer Service: Less Stress Is Best
By Oliver Post
Whether you’re focused on supplying your largest customer with what he needs for half a dozen simultaneous jobs, or dealing with the private contractor walk-in trade, for those who are in direct contact with customers on a daily basis, the importance of customer service never diminishes.
There
are probably a dozen key facets to customer service including basic
sales skills, credit and warranty handling, phone manner, dealing with
walk-in trade, handling objections, and understanding some of the basic
business math that affects pricing.
But, ask
any successful distributor to describe a key reason for their success
and they will say that customer service is at the top of the list. Ask
them to describe what makes for first-class customer service, though,
and you’ll get a range of different answers.
Some
will first offer that customer service is having friendly staff. Others
will insist that inventory is what keeps customers happy. Most will
also suggest that the experience and knowledge of the customer-facing
personnel really make the operation hum. Still others talk about
delivery. And, of course, there is always the price issue.
The
reality is that all of these key factors, and a few others, really keep
customers coming back. The common bond among them is that they all have
the effect of allowing your customers to focus on the job at hand
instead of your company’s role in helping them accomplish it.
Invisibility is what you are trying to achieve, or something close to
it. Sometimes, of course, the importance of the distributor’s role
comes to light.
Unfortunately, this discovery is often as a result of a shortage of inventory or unexpected delays.
While
nobody likes to wait for supplies, small contractors are generally less
regimented than the larger organizations. With fewer and/or smaller
jobs, they don’t generally have the same degree of advanced planning as
their larger colleagues. This tips the balance to on-hand inventory.
You need to ensure that you have small quantities of critical items on
hand at all times.
For
those who deal exclusively with larger customers, they know that
keeping to the scheduled delivery date of products is paramount. A
supply chain hiccup that idles a job for even a few hours can cost
thousands of dollars, and the importance of that needs to be recognized
in advance of having a problem.
As a
front-line worker dealing with that possibility, you need to be on your
toes. If you get a whiff of a potential problem of even a few hours, it
is important to call the contractor’s office to let them know as early
as possible that there might be an issue. While the risk of losing some
business for that particular order might be considered—it is a
possibility if the delay is too long—the risk of losing much more
business down the road is worthy of strong consideration.
If a
shipment that was due yesterday is a day late and you know that it
takes you a full day to split the order and re-ship to contractors on a
tight schedule, you need to inform the contractor as early as possible
that there may be some short-term supply issues, and that you will do
everything you can to minimize the problem.
If you
have a good working relationship, one with some basis for trust, your
efforts will be appreciated. You may find that your delivery drivers
are forced to drop small quantities to keep things operating at the
customer’s site, and taking a hit on profitability as a result, but
that will be appreciated.
Put
yourself in their steel-toed shoes: how would you like it if you
expected to have a supply order sitting on a skid, and had scheduled
your workers accordingly, only to be forced to scramble and deploy
workers to other tasks without any advance notice?
Of
course your operation should do what they can to prevent that from
occurring in the first place by working with reliable suppliers and
having accurate forecasting and proactive purchasing procedures, but
unexpected supply chain interruptions are a fact of life, like a freak
snow storm that slows shipping, border delays, or unexpected increases
in demand for certain products. (Remember Hurricane Katrina’s impact on
the North American building materials market?) It is how you handle
them that will earn you the respect and loyalty of your customers.
Whether
you are dealing with a large contractor or a small one who is buying
supplies from you with the cash he just received from the last job, it
is important to appreciate the impact that running short can have on
their day, their week and their month.
So,
let’s consider that late shipment again. What do you do? Well, what you
don’t do is fret about it waiting on the loading dock, hoping against
hope until five or six in the evening the day before the customer is
expecting the shipment, when it’s too late to call and warn the
customer of the delay.
You need
to look for signs that an order may be running late. Keep in touch with
your receiving people about expected shipments. And, if you get a
little nervous, ask questions, be honest about your concerns, and start
to look for solutions before panic sets in.
Those
solutions may mean finding an alternative supply of at least part of an
order—enough to help the contractor get by for the short term—and then
present the contractor with that potential solution. It may be a case
of some substitutions, but it is always wise to present an option,
rather than just a problem. It should also be noted that you should be
wary of simply substituting other products or brands that may “do the
same job” but are not what was originally ordered.
The
customer may opt to wait for the original shipment, or choose the
solution you put forth, but at least you are presenting an option, and
that will lower the stress of the customer.
And that
is, in essence, what fine customer service is really about—lowering the
stress of the customer. Anything you can do to accomplish that goal can
only benefit you, your company, and your customers.
Oliver Post can be reached at
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Five keys to lowering customer stress
1. Be proactive about shipping schedules, particularly where large jobs might be affected by lateness.
2. Keep customers informed of any real issues, but always present a possible solution to help bridge the gap.
3. If you can employ a seamless solution—an alternative supply that they won’t notice ever happened—don’t tell customers that there was a problem at all. (Don’t be like the delivery driver who would call his boss every time he almost had an “accident.”) It just adds unnecessary stress to the customer’s workday.
4. Use reliable suppliers; price is irrelevant if you don’t have any inventory on hand to sell.
5. Put yourself in the customers’ place; do whatever you can to help reduce any supply concerns they might have.
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