“As far as customers are concerned, you are the company. This is not a burden but the core of your job. You hold in your hands the power to keep customers coming back – perhaps even to make or break the company.” – Unknown
The author of the above quote may be unknown but it is the foundation of customer service. Meeting customers’ needs should be at the core of every business/company culture.
Being polite to customers is not what customer service is all about – it is an essential component of business operations that can influence a business net income and affect how the public views a company. High profile companies are often in the news for the wrong reasons which poor customer service is one of the many reasons.
What Is Customer Service?
Customer service is being focused on ensuring that the needs and desires of customers are met.
Relationship Between Business and their Customers
The relationship between business and their customers can be viewed in two ways:
1. The Warfare Paradigm
2. The Service Paradigm
The Warfare Paradigm: In the warfare paradigm the business objective is to advance at all costs and engages in a never-ending war with his customers trying to get as much as he can from them and probably extorting them in the process. Here, the business smile at their customers, treat their customers as royalties but within; the goal of this is to lull their customers into a sense of security in order to obtain a great deal of money from them by overcharging them.
The Service Paradigm: Here, relationship between business and customers is seen as one of co-operation. The businessmen are not interested in exploiting their customers but co-operate with them by making available to their customers’ products and services that meets their needs also helping them live better, richer and fulfilling lives. Their relationship with client is co-operation based.
As a person I prefer the service paradigm to the warfare paradigm. Below is are my reasons:
1. it fits in easily with a moral life.
2. it’s found in practice that trying to give good service to customers leads to success in business
Qualification Necessary for Service Paradigm:
- Avoid Paternalism: As a firm or organization even after ensuring that the product manufactured is safe and the best compared to that of your competitors; it is important to note that it is not in your place to make decisions on behalf of customers. At the end, customers are better judge of what is in his or her best interests.
Warning
With the presence of social media, customers are quick to share their experiences with a brand or organization online. So, it is important organizations treat customers with utmost care because one wrong move with a customer can wreck an organization /brand that took years of hard work to be built. Monitor your business online and ensure complaints are address promptly.
Why Customer Service Is Important
Just like your business other businesses are competing for customers’ money and customer loyalty. It would not be surprising if much money is invested in marketing and advertising so as to bring customers/consumers through your doors. It is one thing to attract the customers to your business it’s another to sustain the customers. It takes excellent customer service to sustain the customers.
Gone In Minutes, Epic Shutdown!