Art
Siegel

Superior Customer Service Is In The Eye Of The Beholder

A common customer service error is for companies to set a high customer service level, and then apply that service uniformly to all their customers. This would be fine if all their customers were the same, and had the same needs, but that is not the case. Like beauty, Superior Customer Service Is In The Eye Of The Beholder.

On a recent business trip, I decided to have breakfast in the hotel's dining room. It was a beautiful restaurant in a fine hotel. On another day, I might have wanted to take my time and enjoy the meal. But today I was a bit pressed for time. All I wanted was a quick juice, muffin and coffee.

Shortly after I was seated, a bus boy arrived to fill my water glass, followed a few minutes later by the waiter. The waiter asked whether I would be eating from the hotel's elaborate buffet today, and I said no, thank you. With a cheerful smile, the waiter told me about all of the wonderful things on the buffet, and I again said no thanks.

He then asked if I wanted coffee. I said yes, and he poured it. As he poured, he said he would give me a few minutes to look at the menu. Then he turned and left. I didn't want to look at the menu. I wanted to order, but the waiter was too quick for me. I'd have to catch him on his next trip past my table.

When the waiter returned, I asked what kinds of muffins they had. He replied by rapidly reciting from memory today's selection of bagels, Danish pastries, muffins, rolls and kinds of bread that could be made into toast. When he was done, I realized that among all of the selections I didn't catch his muffin offerings. I asked again, he presented the muffins list, and I selected one.

All that was left was my juice selection. I felt more in command of the situation now; before the waiter could turn and disappear, I blurted out, "and a glass of orange juice."

Over the next several minutes, breakfast arrived and was consumed, and the bus staff continually attended to my coffee cup and water glass. When I had finally waved my hand over the coffee cup to signal I could consume no more, the waiter appeared with my check on a tray, as they do in all of the finer establishments. As he turned to leave, he said in his most polite and friendly way: "I'll take that when you are ready."

"I'm ready," I started to say. But it was too late. He was gone. It took looking over my shoulder, waiting for eye contact, and a wave to get the waiter back. I presented my credit card, waited for his return with the completed form, signed it and left.

As I left the restaurant, I had a general sense of unease. What had gone wrong? The food and atmosphere were excellent, and everyone was polite and attentive. The problem was that the hotel and I had different definitions of what makes superior customer service.

Their view of great service
The hotel's definition, at least as exemplified by my waiter, included:

• Offer a wide range of fine food choices.
• Make frequent contact with the customer, including polite, friendly chatter at each contact.
• Allow customers to linger as long as they wish.

My view of great service
My definition that morning was:

• Eat exactly what I was in the mood for.
• Have minimal conversation with service personnel, so I could concentrate on my first meeting of the day.
• Get in and get out as efficiently as possible.

Is the hotel wrong in their approach? No and yes. No, because attentive service is a generally prized commodity today. Yes, because, unlike Burger King, they wouldn't let me have it my way. The lesson this experience brought home was that even the best service will not be perceived as superior by many customers unless it fits their individual needs.

Four Steps To Consistently Achieving Superior Customer Service

1. Identify the kinds of people who represent the principal customers for your product or service.

2. Ask representative members what they want from your company. Look for services that most of them want, as well as those exceptions that come up most commonly.

3. From this list, build your "Service Tool Kit." These are your standard service offerings that you generally expect to provide.

My hotel restaurant got these first three right. By many standards, their service was excellent. All they needed to make it perfect was to add this fourth, most important part of superior customer service:

4. Train your staff to apply the Service Tool Kit in accordance with each customer's unique needs. Here's how:

• At every customer encounter, give the customer enough time to say what they want. Then give them exactly the service they ask for.
• If in doubt, ask the customer what they want.
• If the customer exhibits no specific preferences, then fall back to your standard approach to providing excellent customer service.
• At all times, listen to your customers and watch their body language, and ask yourself, "Am I truly meeting their individual needs?"

SeaBird Associates Inc
3011 NE 7th Drive
Boca Raton, FL 33431
Phone: 561-750-9233
E-mail: Art Siegel

About Art Siegel