IT’S HOW THEY CREAM YOUR BACK

You know how it is. You are down at the beach and you ask someone to put sunscreen on your back.

There are those that slop it on quickly leaving gaps.

Then there are those that carefully and methodically spread the cream, leaving no areas exposed to get burnt.

The same concept can be applied to the “Customer Care” side of your business.

Have you trained your team to fill the gaps?

Effective training means your staff can own and resolve customer issues.

A recent example of this was when I was shopping with my family at a major department store in Melbourne. I had a gift voucher that had expired a year earlier. Given it was a substantial voucher, I went to the store’s customer service department to see if they could help me. And help me they did. Not only did the customer service representative honour the voucher, they added a year to its spending deadline. So what did we do? We used the voucher that day and to my husband’s horror spent way over the value of the voucher.

A win win for everyone – except my husband.

By the customer service representative being empowered to own the problem and solution from beginning to end, there were no gaps. No one got burnt.

Those that know how to spread the cream evenly generate great Customer Service stories for your company. As Jeff Bezos, CEO of Amazon says “If you do build a great experience, customers tell each other about that. Word of mouth is very powerful.” Do not underestimate the connection between Customer Service and branding.

So….. next time you are putting sunscreen on someone’s back or training your staff – think about how the Small Act of leaving a gap can have a Major Impact on the person you are meant to be helping.

Where are the gaps in your Customer Service training?