Connecting with the customer's soul

Many a times, we have come across, an unfriendly server, ‘cold’ ticket attendant and an irritated customer-care executive. As a result of the same, we choose not to deal or avoid interacting (moments of truth!) with the firm in question. Reproduced below is a beautiful piece on the customers’ feelings, when the customer has an unpleasant experience:

My word against yours !

“I am a nice guest, an extremely nice guest – you will agree – I don’t yell, I don’t complain, I don’t ask, I don’t demand, I don’t shout, I don’t comment."

·       When my car door slams on my fingers
·       When the door bangs on my nose
·       When the reception clerk yawns on my face
·       When the bell boy dumps my baggage
·       When I get my ‘hot’ coffee – cold
·       When I get ice-cream instead of custard
·       When I get stuck up in the elevator
·       When my bills for food are overcharged
·       When I am solicited for tips and gifts

I just smile and pay and leave… never to come again. In this world there are many like me. I, my relatives, my friends, colleagues have decided not to come to your hotel again. Your hotel spends 40% of its profits on advertising and gimmicks but… (ITS STILL MY DAY/ MY WORD AGAINST YOURS – I AM NICE GUEST – A EXTREMELY NICE GUEST – ISN’T IT)”
 

Thank you!

Well, not everyone has a knack for dealing with people ( customers, clients, guests). Not everyone has customer-focused attitude. The customer experience is all about what he feels when he is dealing with the company – whether its on the phone, face-to-face interaction with the company employees, on the Company’s website or using the products. But at the heart of all this lie the employees – who represent the Company. In Service Sector, it is important for the Human Resource Department to recruit people with a right mix of technical knowledge required for the job as well as basic customer- service focus. Rather than hire and then sort out poor employees, with high costs of recruiting, training and business disruption; the recruiters should concentrate on hiring and keeping people with the ‘right framework’. This right framework is defined primarily in terms of mental attitude and talent, not demographics. It is extremely important for Companies to instill deep values in their employees from the outset.

Service Companies need to have a clear set of customer-centric values at their core – to give customers a great service, to treat them with respect and to provide highly personalized service. Service Organizations, the world over, are realizing the importance of customer-focus. ‘ Customer is the King’ is not just a saying, it has become a fact. In times to come customers will demand unthinkable changes in the Service Industry – changes that may require us to even transform the way our businesses operate. All the Service Organizations will now need to, more than ever, to constantly upgrade and innovate, add value and come up with the ‘breakthrough service concepts.’

Many Hospitality Firms have developed, as per firm’s objectives and vision, a recruiting questionnaire that, along with an interview, provides separate measure of prospective employees’ guest orientation (human skills), reliability, productivity and loyalty. The primary emphasis of training of new recruits has to be on enhancement of human skills to reflect the company’s goal of excellence in the industry. Being in the Service Industry, we all know that customers/guests of today are well aware and know ‘what to expect.’ They expect the best and anything less is not good enough. It is a treat, to both Service provider’s and the guest’s eye, to see employees genuinely enjoying what they are doing and more importantly who they are doing it with. Hence, good people skills, patience, performance under stress and hard work are the basic traits which any individual must possess to do well in the Services Sector.

The Service sector does not offer a highly structured and predictable environment. One cannot really foretell the nature, the mood, the requirements etc. of the customer one will deal with. It does become stressful at times and one has to be able to ‘Perform under Stress.’ One should be able to derive pleasure out of helping others, being courteous to people. This applies equally to employees in front-of-the-house as well as back-house operations. It is rightly said that ‘attitude defines your altitude’ – more so in the service industry. It is the right attitude towards the customer that helps in connecting with the customer’s soul.