Happy Customers equal WOW!

The owner of a company asked me to run a ‘customer care’ training course for his employees. He said ‘I will also attend the course’. I was delighted – I think it is useful sometimes if the owner joins the course with employees. On the first day, I wanted to find out from participants if they ever asked their customers ‘are they happy with their service?’

Before any of the employees could open their mouths to answer, the owner said, ‘we don’t ask our customers questions like that. It would be like opening a tin of worms, best to avoid these type of questions’. But, these type of questions are exactly what needs to be asked. Only the customers can say what makes them happy. The ‘customer care’ service is for the customers and if organisations do not want to know what makes their customers happy then they are just paying ‘lip service’. Furthermore, they should understand that it will actually benefit them to know what makes their customers happy.

Making customers happy is not just your employees’ duty, as a boss or leader, it is your duty too. As a leader if you are serious about customer satisfaction and happiness – it has to be a joint and collaborative effort. Your customers should be able to put forward their suggestions regarding what they need you as an organisation to do for them to have a happy and satisfied experience.
It is best not to compromise on Quality. Listen to your customer’s voice and give your best as a leader and more importantly enable your employees to give their best.

Customer satisfaction must be everybody’s priority, not just front-line staff. Even the designer who never meets or sees the customer need to understand the importance of this and visualise how happy or satisfied the customer is going to be with their new design or improvement on it.

So, stay focused on the needs of your customer, as the customer sees it, not what you think and assume the customer needs. Think about this, there is a vast difference between the two.

Focus is not just about putting the plan on paper, but there is another important point – the ability to stay focused on your actions is crucial. Enable your employees to stay focus on their actions too in order to develop appropriate behaviours.
Think of this question: ‘Are your employees empowered to deliver a happy service?’  The more empowered they are, the more motivated they will feel to provide the service customers want.

As a leader, you need to create the right conditions and environment that enable employees to be empowered, stay focused on their actions and behaviours in order to deliver a happy service.  Your actions and behaviours and your employees’ actions and behaviours can and will have impact on your business.

By the way, how is your customer service? Ask your customers to rate it.
What way can you improve it? Do your customers go ‘Wow’!  Not yet? What could you do to achieve this? Take one positive step, at least stop doing the things that makes your customers ‘unhappy’.

Thankfully, the owner of the company began to gather confidence and courage to ask customers how to improve their services and now not only are his customers happy, he himself is a much happier person. He admitted to me, he gets a ‘WOW’ feeling when his customers says ‘WOW’!

The best of organisations or business can always improve, and furthermore be innovative and creative with regards to customer service, even though they think they are giving the best Service!  If you give a service that makes your customers Happy – you are in the WOW!

Remember, sometimes the smallest change can get the biggest ‘WOW!’

© Copyright Dr Rozana Ahmad Huq June 2015

Thank you for reading, until the next Huq Post ….
http://rozanahuq.com/rhm-training-2/

1-1 sessions available with Dr Rozana Huq
Dr Rozana Huq
Organisational Behaviourist
http://www.rozanahuq.com
Motivational Speaker, Leadership Educator, Management Author, Life Coach.

Book by Dr Rozana Huq: “Employee Empowerment the rhetoric & reality” (2010). Triarchy Press. This book is a useful tool for managers, leaders and EFQM trainers. It helps to open up discussion regarding issues between management and non-management. In this book, the author also describes the kind of leadership style employees want in an empowered organisation.