bwagy, the blog of Ben Young

We all pay it.

It’s where you call up for service, then the service people treat you like the ‘average’ person (as they’ve been trained to do), if you are the ‘average’ person it’s great service, if you’re not, it’s not so good.  And hey face it we’ve all been on both sides of the fence, knowing nothing at all, or knowing more than average.

You feel like you’re being treated like an idiot.

It’s not hard to fix, bring in customer profiling, last time this person called they already knew this OR just be more polite and diligent in your customer service, that way we don’t have to pay the idiot tax.

No one is average, so don’t treat all your customers as if they are.

(Note: Often the idiot tax annoys your more advanced (and often most valuable) customers, the very customers you should be looking after.)

It is industry practice to give the worst room to walk in guests. (Travel tip: never accept the first room they offer).

Sure there are many reasons behind it but to be honest I don’t really care.

If you have a walk in and rooms are available – give them the best damn room you can.  Hell if the best room is empty.  Upgrade them!

You need to obsess about each and every visitor.  They may only visit once but for every person they tell about their trip or provide tips to a friend heading the same way, you want them to recommend you over and over again.  If you impress them you might get decades of referrals – what better way to build a solid business.

Makes complete sense to me.

Shopping at a local supermarket on Sunday I received great service from a new checkout person.  It was at that moment I thought, why don’t they have a simple touch machine where after the transaction you can rate the service, 1 to 5 stars.  I would have loved to give her five stars.

Imagine that, a small touch screen device, where you can rate the service in a second.  The system then records the rating and at the end of the day the staff member gets their average rating.

Staff realise:

• They are instantly accountable
• Provides a benchmark to lift the bar
• Real time rankings by the hour (look at peaks and troughs during the day)

For the service provider:

• Instant feedback on staff
• Reward the best staff
• Compare satisfaction by time of day
• Get the real picture of what your customers think of your service
• Stimulate a cultural change in customer satisfaction, sending the right signals to staff and to customers

And for customers:

• Feel the respect for opinion
• Can reward outstanding service by giving five stars
• Feel valued
• Makes them consciously think about the level of customer service provided

Not sure on the cost but it would be worth a try! This one little thing could change the whole customer service experience.

(Extra for experts: You already realise people are doing this on twitter (see here) and will continue to do so.  Bit of a no brainer.  Embrace the change)