Report from the customer frontlines

Here are some thoughts that can help you improve your customer service - for internal and external customers.

In the morning, from time to time, I go to a café to work. I love to have a little life around me when I want to concentrate on my tasks. And something always happens there that inspires me, like this one:

I’m at a hotel with a small terrace in front of it. Since it is already warm in the morning, I take a seat at one of the tables and order a coffee with croissant (the usual "breakfast" in French-speaking Switzerland). So far so good.

What I notice: The hotel guests are obviously all sitting in the dark interior to have their breakfast. When one of the hotel guests takes a seat on the terrace, he is clearly instructed by the waitress that hotel guests must sit inside. The guest is visibly "not amused," but, in the end, he complies (after all, we are in Switzerland). I doubt whether he will stay again in this hotel.

What happened here will most likely happen to your customers as well, I have no doubt. And you might not even notice it.

Let's break down this little episode and takeaway three important insights for the treatment of clients:

• Process power. In this case, there is apparently a rule that the terrace is intended for walk-in customers, while the hotel guests (who have already paid anyway) must stay inside. Whatever the reason, this rule is more important than the request of an individual customer. Key question: What are a hotel, restaurant and every business for? To optimize processes or to inspire customers?
• Decoupling. Probably the management of this hotel is not fully aware of the consequences of such a policy. Those who implement the "orders" cannot or do not want to see the bigger picture. And even if they do, they will think twice before acting against rules. Question: To what extent do your managers (or you yourself) know about what really goes on with the customers every day? Do you see this first hand every day or do you only rely on reports?
• Empowerment. How much decision-making power do people "on the front line" have when it comes to implementing the mission in daily life? For a hotel, the mission should be very clear. How clear is it for your company? And how much decision-making power does each of your people have when it comes to generating customers for life and binding them to the company? Or do your managers only trust their people to a limited extent? This means that most companies are giving away enormous potential for customer generation and retention. For example: At Hilton, every receptionist can give the value of $2,000 a day to customers - without consulting the management. How is that with your company?

As always, these points are quite easy to understand, but not necessarily easy to implement. Our internal inertia is often massively opposed to them. If you want to work on these (or similar) points, get in touch with me for a short discussion. ➔ Click here.