Ever see a receipt bearing the words “thanks to you, our valued customer” – and how often do you scoff? Especially when the receipt comes after you’ve scanned and bagged your own groceries, punched in your own loyalty code and made your own change. Oh yes, you feel valued: you’re doing the work of an employee and paying for the privilege.

This self-service practice, seemingly everywhere, saves money for the companies who pay fewer employees to deal with customer concerns, but what does it do for customers? “I went into a store where I’ve shopped for years and found new management,” a busy woman said. She’d stopped in, planning to buy a baby gift for a friend having twins, but she couldn’t find what she wanted and none of the employees offered to help. “I finally left because the manager was too busy talking on her cell phone to answer my questions,” she said.

This scenario could be repeated in any chain store coast-to-coast, with profits up and customer service scarce. “But we take care of the customers in my business,” you say. Can you anticipate what a customer may want or recall a service you provided a year ago? The gap between saying you value your customers and demonstrating how you value them is the difference between the customer who migrates elsewhere and the one who takes to heart the notation “we heart our customers.”

What new ways can you show your customers their value?

“What’s this worth?” It’s the question at the heart of Antiques Roadshow. No matter how junky or strange the item, no matter how useless it appears, everyone’s hoping they’ve scored a prize worthy of a giant price tag or a spot in the Smithsonian. The real value of anything is in the mind of the buyer or customer. A visit to eBay tells you the same thing. A buyer recently bought a vintage needlepoint design first manufactured in the 1970s. She’d stitched one for a friend while in college but always regretted not making one to keep. The original price on “Siamese Cat in Wicker Chair” was about $8, but she happily bid four times that amount as soon as she spotted it online. “I had to have it,” she explained. “It’s as lovely as I remembered and brought back the happiness I felt when I first saw it years ago.”

If value is intangible, especially in business, the memory of value is even more elusive, but is the key to success. A returning customer recalls that he’s been treated well and values the ease of today’s transaction. In a crazy-busy world, the value of that reassurance beats any treasure on Antiques Roadshow. How do your customers rate their repeat experiences with your business?

With the busy holiday and end-of-year season approaching, are you sure your employees know what NOT to say to a customer?  You might not want to believe it, but these are some responses we’ve seen from mystery shopping reports:

1. “There’s nothing I can do.” We all know there is something someone in the organization can do. A better response would be, “Let me see what I can do”, even if they don’t think they can do anything. Employees should allow the customer to walk away feeling as though they were listened to, even if the problem can’t be resolved to their full satisfaction.
2. “Now just calm down.” Not the best statement to make when a customer is in the midst of a fit of frustration. Let them vent, ask them to follow you to an area away from other customers, empathize with them – just don’t tell them to stop feeling what they are feeling. There comes a point in every tirade that an employee can assure the customer they are being heard and indicate what the next step would be.
3. “We’re out of that, sorry.” Period. No other offer. In all likelihood, most places aren’t out of anything FOREVER. Have your employees call another store, look up the date it will be back in stock, take a number to call when they come in. Anything to honor the fact that you want this person’s business.

No business is immune from employees who do not have the training or insight into understanding how to best treat the customer.

Would you like to know what your employees are telling your customers? Contact Market Viewpoint and we’ll set up a mystery shopping program where you can ‘listen in’ on the conversations your staff is having with your customer!

We are all born with a marvelous sense of wonder and awe. Think about it. The next time you see a baby; watch their faces and bodies as they learn to do something new.  Rolling over onto their back for the first time, taking that first step without holding on, drinking from the Sippy cup all by themselves…a baby’s eyes will get wide with excitement, they’ll smile, maybe even clap their hands or wiggle their legs and feet. They did it! Not only does the baby react with excitement, the adults who are present for these momentous events get excited too. They smile, laugh, clap their hands, and praise the baby for the achievement. While the baby is learning the new skill, the adult is present to guide and assist until the baby is able to perform on their own. Then something happens along the way. The laughter, clapping, and guidance stop for some reason.

As we mature, we begin to get new kinds of messages from those in authority. Maybe it’s our parents, the older siblings we look up to, coaches, teachers, scout masters, or even the media who begin to tell us we’re not good enough, strong enough, pretty or handsome enough, intelligent enough, etc. These negative messages play over and over in our minds until we come to believe the untruths we’re told by those we admire and trust.

What does all this have to do with customer service?

Plenty.

Negative messages about our skills, abilities, and outward appearances to the world erode our sense of self-esteem. Employees with low levels of self-esteem are generally unhappy people. I am sure this isn’t who you want serving your customers or prospects.

Here are some self-esteem facts:

• Self-esteem is the most important thing an employee brings to the job each day. An employee needs to feel good about themselves before they can help others feel good too.
• Higher levels of self-esteem are usually accompanied by higher levels of success. These two factors build on each other creating more success and greater self-esteem for the individual.
• Self-esteem begins in our heads. As adults, it is our responsibility to reverse the negative messages we hear and replace these with positive messages that we know to be true about ourselves.
• Unhappy people, and you know who they are, tend to have low levels of self-esteem. They tend to blame others (government, management, parents, siblings, etc.) for their problems, taking on the role of victim.

It is the smart CEO and manager who compliment their employees and contractors when their performance warrants praise and gently guides them when their performance warrants improvement or adjustment. This allows the employee to ultimately experience success. This communication is essential. Employees with healthy self-esteem mean happy employees and happy employees mean happy customers.

What behaviors and performance levels do you value? How do you communicate this to your staff?

When the results come in from your latest round of mystery shops, some of your employees are going to feel like the latest contestants who won Dancing with the Stars. Others…not so much. Ok, I am officially busted. You now know that I am a huge Dancing with the Stars fan. I am a devotee of the beautiful costumes, fabulous music, and very talented professionals who coach the celebrity contestants to become the best dancers they can possibly be. But the thing I am impressed with the most are the professional judges who rate each routine.  They love lavishing praise, (and as managers and supervisors, don’t we all?). But when it comes to rating those dancers who are clearly not going to seeing the mirror ball trophy anytime soon, you can actually see how difficult it is for them. I think it’s the same for us as managers when it comes to meeting with our staff and sharing the results of the latest round of mystery shops. It’s easy to share the news when it’s good and much more difficult when improvement is necessary.

Here are some things to think about as you approach these employee meetings.

• Think of the data contained in the mystery shopping reports as the starting point of a conversation. The data allows you to approach staff performance problems from a third party perspective.
• Lavish praise where employees have done well just like the judges. Be specific with the things you know the staff is doing well and spend time coaching your staff on how to improve. The mystery shopping reports will give you specific examples to cite.
• Give you staff specific things to work on until the next round of shops. This is what the judges do on Dancing with the Stars. They tell the competing couples what they want to see the following week in the way of improvement. It helps to know what your coach or the judge expects.

Are there any tips you care to share when it comes to having those tough discussions with an employee?

As you’re enjoying the next season of Dancing with the Stars, take a tip from their panel of judges and add some new techniques as you coach your staff on their way to delivering the ultimate customer experience.

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