Customer Service: A Moving Target

By Randy Arthur

President, Arthur Air Conditioning

“There’s no customer service anywhere anymore” is a complaint we hear too often, and not just during the busy shopping season surrounding the holidays. Customers want a personal touch with virtually every transaction, unless they are ordering on the Internet. When we lose sight of the need to see each customer as an individual, with her own questions and his own concerns, we lose customers. 

Customers buying products may simply have questions about price, delivery or features, and a catalog or Web site may answer those questions perfectly well. Customers buying services need more high-touch interaction. Trust is hard to measure but essential with a customer who will be allowing a contractor into her home, for example. 

This is how I try to make sure all our customers are satisfied customers:

		Answer the telephone promptly, and never banish a customer to voice-mail without permission;
		Keep appointments on time, or if that becomes impossible, keep in touch with customers to let them know a delay is inevitable;
		Hire only licensed technicians who pass a background check—don’t send anyone into a customer’s home that you wouldn’t want entering your own home;
		Impress on repair personnel that they must treat the customer’s home as if it were their own—wipe their shoes, don’t haul dirty tools around inside, handle with care!
		After a service call, send a questionnaire asking whether the firm met the customer’s requirements. Leave blank space and ask for general comments, and pay attention to them.

 No matter how hard we try, we will sometimes fail to meet these goals. People are human, and that means mistakes are inevitable. I have found that it is not the mistake that leaves a dissatisfied customer, it is how the company handles the mistake that makes the difference. This is how a service-oriented business recovers a customer’s trust:

		Make good on the goof, whatever it requires. Fix the problem fast.
		Apologize sincerely.
		Don’t shift blame from your company to a subcontractor or, worse, the customer. Accept responsibility for your foul-ups (and those of your employees.)
		Ask the customer if there is anything else your firm needs to do to repair the relationship. If there is, do it.

It’s always a pleasure to offer world-class customer service to my neighbors. Call me if you have a question I can answer.