I recently read a news article about a survey in which 50% of participants said Walmart has the worst grocery store customer service of any grocery chain. And what was more interesting about the article was that Walmart knows it. The giant big box store relies more on lower prices than great customer service to keep customers coming back. In fact, it purposely sacrifices customer service by lowering labor costs by having fewer employees to help customers. This allows the company to continue to offer the lowest prices possible. With hundreds of millions of dollars in daily cash flow and hundreds of thousands of customers walking through its doors every day, Walmart is definitely too BIG to fail, even with the worst customer service in its industry.
Real World Story: This got me thinking about the ways smaller organizations consider themselves too BIG to fail, therefore, throwing customer service out the window as a means to retaining customers. Perhaps, you are the only urgent care clinic in a rural area or the only pediatric medical office in a tri-state area that guarantees to accept any and all medical insurance plans. Maybe you are the only Mediterranean vegan restaurant in a 50-mile radius, or your pizza parlor offers 50% off any order after 10pm every night with free, 30-minute guaranteed delivery in town. Therefore, customer service is not a priority.
Even worse, and more likely, employees who think they are too BIG to be bothered to help your customers when they call or walk through your doors may plague your organization. No matter where you may fall on the spectrum, the point here is that when organizations start to consider themselves too BIG to fail, they begin to rely more on tactics like lower prices, scarcity, uniqueness or value-added benefits than actual great customer service to keep customers coming back. Nothing can replace great customer service.
Strategies that Turn it Around:
- Think about the little guy. Customers are the bloodline of every business. So no matter why customers come through your doors, why not treat them like the big deal that they are? Every single customer deserves to be made to feel special. I had discovered a vegan restaurant near where I lived. I don’t know how they did it, but they turned simple brown rice, potatoes and black beans into the most delicious and delectable burrito that I have ever eaten in my entire life! Too bad most of the wait staff treated most customers like they were beneath them. Too much attitude and not enough connecting with people.
- Think about the little things. A warm welcome. A smile. Looking a customer in the eye. Using a customer’s name throughout an interaction. Doing all the small things will make your customers feel welcomed and cared for. I had the worst medical insurance in the world, but I didn’t know it then. I was working at my very first job right after high school, so I was thrilled to have my very own health insurance. But I quickly discovered that not all clinics accepted my plan. When I found a clinic near me, the staff always seemed bothered by my presence. They never smiled, mispronounced my last name, and never looked me in the eye. Needless to say, I felt a pang in my belly every single time I needed to see my doctor because I felt like I was pestering his office staff by simply showing up.
- Think little of BAD employees. Nothing like BAD employees will kill your business and your reputation, so always hire employees who are intuitively helpful and fire the ones who don’t meet your standards. I hated shopping at my local grocery store, even though it was a convenient short walk from my apartment—not because it was overcrowded or because it was pricey, but because most of the cashiers “actively” ignored you. They would talk to one another across the check-out lanes—and it was usually snide comments about the previous customer they had just checked out—while completely ignoring the people they were checking out at the moment. It was always an uncomfortable situation, and it was a chronic problem. I was happy never to shop there again when I moved!
Remember: Too BIG to fail may be the saving grace of giants like Walmart, but smaller organizations cannot discount the advantages of having great customer service, which is what will keep customers coming back to you again and again.
How does your customer service help retain customers on a consistent basis?