Why is it difficult for so many companies to interpret and satisfy the needs and expectations of their clients with a degree of excellence if you and I, if all of us, without exception, are, have been and will be clients?
This and other questions with high content and wide possibilities for analysis attracted a good number of managers, executives and entrepreneurs to a training on the substantial - and strategic - difference that exists between customer service and satisfaction, between nominal service - full of promises and benefits, of bombast, of advertising ostentation- and real attention, which corresponds to the daily and constant exercise of a series of corporate values that, by themselves, serve to show customers that there, really, What is advertised is done, what is offered is offered one hundred percent.
Good nominal, or partially real, service seems to exist everywhere, in companies large and small, five or eighty years old, local, national or transnational, with high and low budgets, with few or many service advisors, with semi-trained or “ultra” trained staff. And it all ultimately comes down to the simplest of calculations: my clients are 30, 60, 90 or 99% grateful, pleased and satisfied. You will see these or those if they have more or less sustainable explanations, or crude or sophisticated pretexts to establish why they achieve or not achieve a certain level of satisfaction.
The only certain thing, the only thing worth considering is that each client approaches us two, three or a hundred times in search of a promise, of a benefit that, in one way or another, we have offered or drawn in their mind. The customer believes that they will get what they deserve for their money and wants to keep that expectation intact indefinitely. Moreover, the client is not interested in being involved in the complexities inherent to any business, the ups and downs, the large capital invested, the "great effort" that a management team, all the managers or the company in set to offer what it claims to offer.
Unfortunately, there are cases like these everywhere: companies and businesses of all kinds in which clients are subtly or daringly blamed that certain things "are like this", not as good as they seem, that "no everything goes well all the time ”, no one is to blame, and the customer, in the end, has no choice but to grudgingly endure those straitjackets or faint in the attempt to have their right to be well cared for, to receive what with great fanfare and cymbals has been offered. In fact, this tendency is accentuated in the “Goliats”, that is, in those business conglomerates that monopolize a large part of the market and, in general, are poorly regulated and sanctioned by state entities. His opulence, his "greatness",union agreements and reduced real competition free them from the “nightmare” or the burdensome burden of “having” to provide a careful service to that multitude of clients that, in any case, they will not lose.
In terms of excellence and high commitment to the client, we try to filter and eradicate such tricks and such twists and turns. You simply privilege the principle that customers have a need and want to satisfy it as well as possible, without wasting time, without makeup, without lip service, without distracting or intimidating displays. The closer we get to this concept, to this philosophy, the more willing our clients will be to continue being our clients. What the client did, does and will always do is perceive and qualify immediate realities, facts, people, what pleases him, serves him and is convenient for him, seeing and feeling as pleasant and beneficial what the company -and each of its representatives - offer you at each of the moments of care.
Shift the organizational culture from the awareness of the “incomparable advantages and benefits” that are dispensed to clients -components often administered as if they were extraordinary favors rendered to subjects that appear on a screen- towards the awareness of the rights that they They have to be carefully attended to is a major brand challenge, a 180 degree turn, a total break with the usual paradigm of nominal and routine care, real-partial, or of what I usually call “compulsory care”.
Setting a series of principles and rights that protect clients will provide us with a firm and clear guideline of corporate mission oriented towards excellence in service. If we all know what a good service is in our own flesh, it is natural that we try to find formulas and consensus that help us differentiate high-quality services from those that do not pursue anything other than "catch" a client and then manage it in anyway.
The following Universal Declaration of Clients' Rights starts from this pressing need, a decalogue to which companies truly and sincerely committed to seeking and perfecting the quality of service and the satisfaction of their main assets should adhere:
First right: The client has the right not to know.
This phenomenon occurs, above all, in those cases in which customers are recriminated and mistreated for not being aware of one or more aspects of the operational mechanics of the company that provides them a service. It is the duty of the company to present truthful, complete, timely information and through the most appropriate channels to its customers. At the same time, it is their duty to apply a significant economic and logistical effort in the training and qualification of all the personnel - not only of the advisors or the service personnel - in active listening techniques, talent to ask questions and propose solutions, study periodical of the business casuistry and strategies to lead the customer to satisfaction.
Second right: The client has the right to make suggestions and see their good suggestions come true.
One concept that I often emphasize is this: Customers work for those from whom they buy. No more no less. A well-managed customer is a useful source of information for an insightful and truly helpful company. Many companies are willing to receive all kinds of suggestions, but they do it as one more formality or they do not give an intelligent and strategic procedure that adds value to the service. Overall, almost always customers are completely unaware if they were listened to, if their initiative was translated into an action or a visible and beneficial fact for them, for other customers, and for the company itself!
Third right: The client has the right to ask, to distrust, to reply and to compare.
The customer is a human being. Yes, it is a truism truth, but on many occasions companies behave in such a way that it is worth refreshing an obvious truth like that. Rather than buyers, companies deal with beings of flesh and blood, beings that do not want to be seen and treated like walking checkbooks, can I explain myself? Sometimes, it gives the impression that certain service processes, that certain ways of interacting with customers carry the message: "Hurry, buy from us, shut your mouth and don't waste our precious time… Next!" Is that what they call customer service?
Fourth right: The client has the right not to waste his valuable time (as valuable as that of the company).
And speaking of the use and abuse of time, here is another notable and very common deficiency in the attention processes. "Your time is all ours", the companies that oblige the client to come and go, personally or by telephone, seem to say with their procedures, after solving their problems or attending to their requirements. There are few occasions in which I have been able to verify that companies are really interested in managing time in favor of the client, in letting him know that they are aware that they do not want their client to squander this precious asset. With the resources and tools that we currently have, it is unforgivable that there is no strategic configuration destined to offer quality of service in terms of response speed and time savings.
Fifth right: The customer has the right to be well cared for before, during and LONG AFTER the sale.
After sales? What is this? Sure, professional after-sales and customer follow-up is a practice that is considered “expensive,” dispensable in the eyes of many managers. "Why bother, why apply efforts to someone who already gave us what we were looking for?" Bravo, excellent vision, excellent way to interpret what it means to maintain a business relationship with clients. Such myopia opens a fertile field of opportunities for competitors who DO understand that sales do not stop when a client leaves the business with his contract under his arm. Surely you have received “contract renewal” calls in which you clearly perceive that the so-and-so representative of the firm X had an alarm set off in his system indicating that it was time to contact you to continue in captivity.If you make any observations or have objections, ah, what a bad thing, that is all unforeseen! The so-and-so representative did not call him for that, so he changes his tone and implies that his observations, his experience with the product and his level of satisfaction, do not really concern him. And they are even surprised and upset when you decide not to renew the contract!
Sixth right: The client has the right not to create false expectations.
This concept fits into two words: sustainability-integrity. Customers love to confirm, to corroborate that they made the right choice, that it is worth coming back or staying, because the succession of good impressions and experiences is maintained over time, they do not turn around, they do not wear out. There is a certain kind of attention that I call "honeymooners." That means that the new customer is given all the compliments in a short, very short period of time and then falls, little by little or suddenly, into second or third class treatment.
Seventh right: The client has the right to be cared for (and understood) by expert personnel.
How many times have we asked ourselves, when leaving a business: Geez, who would have thought of putting these people to serve customers? This, in turn, raises an obvious question: Why, with customer engagement, direct care, and quality service being so strategic and essential to the growth and prosperity of any business, is it so common to meet people? poorly managed, poorly paid, poorly motivated, and poorly trained performing those tasks? It is a contradiction, a deficiency that not even certain highly positioned companies seem to get away with. The causes are multiple, but the fact is undeniable:There are not many cases in which customers have a highly favorable perception of the level of care they receive and the ability of employees to provide satisfactory answers and solutions.
Eighth right: The client has the right to wait and obtain prompt solutions.
Tomb silence and abuse of dominance are the first acts of deterrence and intimidation by a company that feels a certain customer is pushing it into hostile terrain. That translates something like this: “Give up… You are nobody; you are just an undesirable customer, just that and nothing more than that ”. In addition to paving the way for legal disputes and claims with absurd procedures -which clearly undermine the interests of the client-, some companies persist in the error of not implementing conciliatory and compensatory strategies that allow them to get out of the conflict situation soon. They go to litigation, to the fight, and not to other legal modalities that have proven to be much more practical and effective.
Ninth right: The client has the right to be defended even by the company itself.
A state with active, inquisitive and strong regulatory bodies is the best guarantee of quality and compliance for clients in a broad context of a free market economy. However, the figure of the client ombudsman, appointed for this purpose within the same companies, is a very successful and intelligent solution to maintain and increase the client's confidence in the procedures and actions of the companies, only that an office like this he must earn the credibility of those he claims to represent, or else he will become yet another setup to evade his responsibilities to them.
Tenth right: The client has the right to relax, to feel comfortable.
Customers love to enter places or environments where they perceive that they are comfortable and safe. Customers are fascinated to detect that someone has arranged everything in such a way - from the entrance mat to the farewell to the doorman in the parking lot - that it does not prevent them from stopping to think about their family, their next trip, their commitments that time. week or at work. Clients are fascinated by the tickling sensation of noticing that sensitive, friendly, serious and very professional people want to show them, on that day and in the year to come, that they have and will take care of all their needs.
