Products and services that are remarkable get talked about. A famous quote from Seth Godin. And Seth, products, and services that are below par get talked about even more. Guarantees of poor customer service? They are everywhere you look. Like fireflies on a hot summer night.

poor customer service — Good customer service performance?

Many businesses spend considerable time trying to create great customer service and customer experiences. Problem is they start their work on the complex side of the equation

Examples: Stunning Customer Service Lessons and Their Examples

And another important perspective from Seth:

People don’t believe what you tell them.

They rarely believe what you show them.

They often believe what their friends tell them.

They always believe what they tell themselves.

Seth Godin

“Your call is very important to us,” is not a true statement because it’s a promise not meant to be kept. The truth is self-evident. You’ll often say what you need to make customers go away.

“I promise I’ll tell my manager about this,” is of course not a real promise either. It might be uttered with good intent, or might be designed to get an annoying customer to go away, but still…

You can already guess the problem with little lies. They allow you to blur and then ultimately get you to cross the line, and they lead to bigger and bigger lies. The worst kind of little lies are the ones you make to yourself. Once you’re willing to lie to yourself, it’s all downhill.

So here are some great examples of poor customer service. The easy stuff, so to speak. The stuff your business needs to start with … to make sure no issues here. But while your business is working to build the great customer service … the little things are killing you.

We’ve all seen and heard these before:

Lack of empathy

Many employees are not engaged. And they don’t care.

Employees not empowered

Employees can’t act on their own to solve your problems.

Broken promises

Broken promises and no follow-up. No closure on what they tell you. Little lies that start to grow.

You answer questions

Customers get handed off and have to repeat the answers. Sometimes 3 or more times. Really annoying.

No menu option

Companies don’t have a menu option to talk with a real person. Until you have been through the wringer 3 times or more.

Long waits

Long waits on hold with a repeating recording telling you that the business will be with you momentarily.

Poor customer service by multiple handoffs

With many handoffs, you are beginning to wonder if everyone in the company is brand new. And knows little.

Customer survey requests

Too many multiple requests starting before you have ever had any service.

Very long time to get a response

No quick response either verbally via the phone or online chat.

Nowhere on the website to find information

Very difficult to find the information you assume it should be readily available.

Companies that refuse to break small promises have a much easier time keeping big promises. And they earn a reputation, one that makes their handshake worth more. Simple things are done right.

They make sure the little things are working well before they turn their attention to the more complex elements of service and experience.

Given that expectation and trust are just about all we have left to sell, it seems to us that little lies and small promises are at the very heart of the matter. And they’re a simple choice, nothing requiring an MBA or a spreadsheet. Just common sense.

If your customers know you will always focus on your needs then they will treat you accordingly and often will not trust you. You will not be a high priority for them because they are not a high priority for you.

But if they know you will always do right by them, they will treat you like someone they can trust. And they’ll come back more often.

Remember … the more you engage with customers, the more you can own the moment, the better your understanding of their needs and from these insights the easier it is for you to win new customers. And keep the ones you have happy. This is the most important thing you can do. Making poor service go away.

Do you have a customer service experience to share with this community?

Need some help in building better customer service for your customers? Have you noticed the growing importance from customer service you provide, especially for your marketing? Creative ideas to help enhance your word of mouth marketing?

Call today for a FREE consultation or a FREE quote. Learn about some options to scope your customer service improvement and pay for results.

Call Mike at 607-725-8240.

All you get is what you bring to the fight. And that fight gets better every day you learn and apply new ideas for your service to customers.

When things are not what you want them to be, what’s most important is your next step. Call today.

Test. Learn. Improve. Repeat.

Are you devoting enough energy to improving your continuous learning for yourself and your team?

Mike Schoultz is the founder of Digital Spark Marketing, a digital marketing and customer service agency. With 40 years of business experience, he blogs on topics that relate to improving the performance of your business. Find them on G+, Twitter, and LinkedIn.

Digital Spark Marketing will stretch your thinking and your ability to adapt to change. We also provide some fun and inspiration along the way. Call us for a free quote today. You will be amazed at how reasonable we will be.

How to Build Trust to Keep Customers Returning

Best Buy Lessons in Customer Service

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Frederick the Great once said: It is pardonable to be defeated but never to be surprised. Frederick was not talking about customer service, was he? But this quote could very well apply to a service recovery plan, yes? Except we might argue that a defeat is as bad as a surprise.

Read on: How to Build Trust to Keep Customers Returning

Be prepared is the motto of the Boy Scouts. Also applies to just about everything else we do in life.

Does your customer service prepare for contingencies? Contingencies and strategy designs for when things don’t go as planned?

We’ll use a story to explain.

A story about poor customer service and a resulting bad customer experience at a restaurant. A large group of business people had arranged to get together for lunch to celebrate a colleague’s birthday. They chose a restaurant that they hadn’t been to before, as they wanted to give it a try. Plans and reservations for the group of 25 people were made several days in advance.

Arrival at the restaurant was on time. However, despite having made the reservation, they had to wait 20 minutes before they could be seated. Once seated and menus had been handed out, the group was ignored. Everyone was hungry and ready to order. They also had a limited amount of time before everyone needed to head back to work.

A waitress finally arrived to take everyone’s order.

After waiting for longer than seemed necessary, and observing other tables get their meals ahead of theirs, the group’s meals arrived. EXCEPT ONE, for the meal ordered by the birthday guest. He didn’t receive his meal until most of the others were finished.

A complaint was lodged with the manager, with no success. He was totally indifferent to the situation. He offered no apology and, after being asked to comp that meal, refused to do so.

This bad experience triggered one of the group to write a letter to the head office of the restaurant chain. They detailed the experience and mentioned that in addition to the 25 customers they had lost directly — everyone would tell their friends they would not recommend visiting that restaurant as well.

Ultimately, that meant more customers that would be lost.

A few days later my colleague received a letter of apology in the mail and a $40 gift card.

However, they couldn’t find anyone willing to return to the restaurant to use it due to that bad experience.

Recovery plan … Key Takeaways

First of all, bad things happen in every business. But good preparation can usually eliminate most of them. For example, you need to decide how large of a group you can handle on top of your normal crowd.

If you can’t handle a group of 25 with your normal great service, then you owe it to the potential customers to let them know what extra wait time would be required. Or, just apologize and don’t accept the reservations. The key to keeping customers happy is through honest communication, being accountable for the poor experience, and being prepared to deliver what you promise.

Then, if things go wrong, you should have service recovery strategies in place, with everyone prepared and empowered to act. Prepared and empowered to make things right — on the spot. Research tells us that when we fix a problem on the spot that loyalty actually increases more than if the customer is simply satisfied.

So rather than seeing a complaining customer as a problem — start seeing them as an opportunity to demonstrate your service recovery strategies as a way to build loyalty.

For example, if there was to be a delay in the preparation of meals, then the customer needs to be informed. Informed ahead of time. Offering something to help address the situation also helps — in this case perhaps a basket of bread or something else could have been offered while they were kept waiting.

In this case, the effort was too little and way too late. They couldn’t regain the trust of the customers they lost through one bad experience. And unhappy customers tell everyone. Not good for any business.

The key is to take steps to rectify the problem quickly — instead of ignoring it.

A simple reminder … we all know it’s easier to keep existing customers than to find new ones.

Do you have a customer service experience to share with this community?

Need some help in building better customer service for your customers? Have you noticed the growing importance from customer service you provide, especially for your marketing? Creative ideas to help enhance your word of mouth marketing?

Call today for a FREE consultation or a FREE quote. Learn about some options to scope your customer service improvement and pay for results.