Does the customer feel loved?
If a customer wants to be fussed over and loved, she should buy a poodle.
No corporate cheer rally (also called a “product launch” or “team building”) is complete without singing the praises of the customer — he’s the one who pays your salary. All sales and marketing seminars preach the gospel of unstinting service — delight the customer. He is king. He is always right. Companies shrivel and die without him. Praises accorded to that abstract consumer verge on idolatry.
Can the slogan, “The customer is a pest” ever be featured on a poster tacked on the walls of a customer care center, maybe with the visual of a cockroach encircled with the universal symbol of eradication, a red circle with a slash? Stomp on the pest.
And yet, does the customer feel royally treated by those trying to get his business? Is after-sales service which doesn’t merit a commission always something to celebrate? After all the training programs that portray the customer as the service provider’s reason for being, what actually happens in the real world?
Perhaps, the rise of the self-service approach enshrined in the Internet culture has eroded the quality (or even desire) for pampering the customer. E-commerce has left the servicing of customers to a program algorithm. The shopper can buy anything in the net: airline ticket, hotel booking, jeans, shoes, theater tickets, and books ( you may also like to buy this other thriller). The interaction between seller and customer is a multiple-choice sequence of decisions that leads into a payment method and then actual fulfilment with the delivery of a real product or its digital version.
The absence of face-to-face interaction in this sales cycle is a feature of a growing number of sales transactions. (If you want to hear a real human voice, press 16.) The live interaction, whether on the phone with a “customer care assistant” or the live equivalent in a booth at the mall, is on the decline, along with the skills associated with that old-fashioned activity.
On the supply side of the live customer interface is a stressed out attendant, maybe a contractual temp from an outsourced service provider. He has undergone some basic training in the product features and is probably two pages ahead of the customer he is tasked to assist. On the demand side is a discontented, maybe even hostile, customer who feels he has paid for a lemon without any appetite for lemonade. Is it then unlikely that the conversation that ensues is not imbued with professionalism and civility? Sir/Ma’am, I’m not aware of that product feature.
In the more traditional fields of service provision, the treatment of the customer as a distraction persists.
Is the waitress trained to avoid eye contact? In a busy restaurant, the customer who wants a glass of water, a menu, a person to take his order or present him his bill, and then to follow up his receipt and change can feel neglected. He tries to wave at a uniformed attendant and make eye contact to mime his needs (a tipping of the cupped hand for a glass of water). The waitress has her eyes focused elsewhere, up the ceiling to check on crawling insects that may fall on the soup tureen, the table assignment by the door, and maybe an expectant stare through the walls to await the apparition of a long-lost grandmother. (It’s her death anniversary.)
Little in management literature has been written about the right of the sales agent to be grouchy to customers. The principles of a pleasant customer encounter need to be spelled out. A few will suffice.
The customer should know what she wants. If she can’t make up her mind or doesn’t understand the product and its limitations she should brush up on this first and study the manual. Otherwise, she will be taking up too much time as the line behind her gets longer.
If the sales agent is engaged in a phone conversation or texting a significant other, the customer has to be patient and not be interrupting the former just to be attended to.
Should sales agents in adjacent counters be chatting with each other while attending to the customer? What’s wrong with small talk if one has the ability to multi-task? The customer has no right to butt in and insist on the focus to be on her requirements. That is just selfish.
If a customer wants to be fussed over and loved, she should buy a poodle. Next, please.