Thinking Ahead

Providing excellent customer service crucial in business

Pat Cataldo

My cousin Anthony was quite a character. As a very young man I learned a great deal from him. One of his favorite sayings was, “I may not always be right, but I’m never wrong.” When it came to service in a restaurant, at least, he held firm to that ideal.

I got to thinking about my cousin’s theory the other day. Isn’t it interesting that, in an economy dominated by the delivery of “services,” all too frequently service and civility seem to have flown the coop? Let’s call it the “Great Service Paradox.” In today’s highly competitive economy, first-rate service is often the difference between success and failure. Why then do we encounter so many instances of less-than-stellar interaction between company and customer?

Perhaps we all need to rethink the critical role that service plays in our businesses and lives.

Questions abound: Is the customer always right? Do companies really understand how important a happy customer is, or do they simply pay lip service to the concept? How do we deal with chronic complainers? Has technology actually gotten in the way of customer service? Do we spend more energy making excuses than we do on delivering great service?

Whether we want to admit it or not, each of us must make a commitment to excellent service. Regardless of our job title or position in an organization, we all help create — and deliver — a strategic commitment to service — or we don’t. Ironically, the paradoxical nature of business often places entry-level employees at the nexus of the customer relationship, but that does not let anyone else off the hook.

CEOs and presidents, cashiers and clerks, managers and construction workers, government officials and turnpike toll takers, professors and university staff — all of us — must accept responsibility for the role we play in the service process. We all want great service; we all should be willing to provide it.

A number of years ago the White House Office of Consumer Affairs conducted a study of customer attitudes and habits. The results were very revealing:

• 86 percent of unhappy customers never complain about rude or discourteous service, but 90 percent or more of them will not visit or buy from that place again.

• Worse still, all of those unhappy customers will tell their stories to at least nine other people, and 13 percent of those unhappy customers will tell their stories to at least 20 other people.

The minority of customers who do complain provide businesses and organizations with an opportunity to gather specific feedback that can be used to take corrective actions.

Of course it is better to be proactive in this regard. Happy and satisfied customers, the studied showed, will tell at least five other people each about your company, and many of those told will become your customers.

The importance of great service must be ingrained in the culture of an organization, from top to bottom. Consider Stew Leonard’s, a family-owned grocery story in Norwalk, Conn. Passionate about customer service, the business can boast about its legions of loyal shoppers. They have two simple rules: Rule No. 1: The customer is always right. Rule No. 2: If the customer is ever wrong, reread Rule No. 1.

To make sure no one forgets the two rules, the company has chiseled them into three-ton granite rocks at each store’s entrance.

After a full day at the office, Serih Zakalik, a former member of the information technology staff at Amazon.com, left her day job at 5 p.m. during the busy holiday season and went to help out in the warehouse by picking, packing and shipping orders.

“It’s amazing the commitment the company and its employees had to meeting and exceeding customer expectations,” she said.

When running training for Home Depot, I often heard the story about Bernie Marcus, company cofounder, who visited a store to thank the employee who accepted the return of a Craftsman lawnmower, even though Home Depot does not sell them. He congratulated the refund associate for doing the right thing. At the time, we trained employees to be accommodating, helpful, and not part of the “returns police”.

This week, on my “Thinking Ahead in Business” blog, I’ll share a few more personal service stories and invite you to do the same. Join me. When it comes to service, it’s everyone’s business.

Pat Cataldo is associate dean for executive education at Penn State's Smeal College of Business. Write to him at pac21@psu.edu