“The Customer is Number One.” Isn’t that the golden rule of customer service? If you have a business or work for one, you’re only there to serve your customers. They are your real employer because they fund the payroll.
“The customer is always right.” That’s another pillar of customer service. The phrase was attributed first to Marshall Field, who operated an upscale Chicago department store bearing his name. A different version builds on the first. “The customer isn’t always right, but he’s always the customer.” In other words, even when the customer is wrong, he still deserves respect and consideration.
A recent Letter to the Editor in the New York Times by Jay Feldman of Port Washington, New York, gives an interesting twist to the old customer service perspective. The letter, entitled, "Invitation to Dialogue: The Corporate Citizen,” discusses the shift in focus to pleasing shareholders with profitability instead of the customer. Is Corporate America changing the time-honored slogan to “The Shareholder is Number One?”
What is causing the shift and short-changing the customer? Feldman points to several factors.
- Abandoning the Mission. Many companies take great care in crafting a punchy mission statement that will rally the troops and inspire customers and shareholders. What Feldman decries in his letter is the shift away from those lofty goals and pledge of customer satisfaction to a laser focus on the bottom line and keeping investor’s happy. This new emphasis may keep the money guys happy, but make the customer feel shortchanged.
- The economy. In order to increase profits, corporations are shortchanging another customer—their employees who are internal customers as well. Need to improve profitability? Cut costs, like benefits, salaries and positions. Layoffs, downsizing and eliminating benefits may make the bottom line look better, but takes a toll on morale and the employee’s buying power. Employees are also consumers, so cutting back on employee benefits is actually a double-edged sword.
- Technology. Who hasn’t been confronted with an automated phone answering system that puts you through a maze of options and questions that made sense to the techie who designed it but is confusing to the customer? In order to talk to a human being you have to give the same list of information to an automated cyber-agent several times, navigate a complicated set of prompts, hope you pushed the right button and then give the information over again. Is this real service? Who is it serving? It’s a little insulting to be told, after several minutes navigating the automated system, that you should first go the company’s website to get your question answered. Cheaper for the company, but frustrating for the customer. Companies can take a lesson from the General Electric Answer Line, where you get a real person on the first dial.
- Outsourcing. Moving a customer service call center overseas may be cheaper, but what happened to corporations being good citizens? In this economy, a job is a job. Call centers may not pay well or provide the most stimulating work environment, but they're a start. Thousands of jobs may help a foreign country, but in this economy, they are also welcome at home in the USA. The unemployed and under-employed are consumers, too.
Feldman asks for a return to corporate responsibility and a renewed sense of community. Corporations should consider a return to responsible corporate citizenship making customer satisfaction priority Number One.
Image by David Castillo Dominici / freedigitalphotos.net
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