Last week, I shared a story from a colleague about customer service at Ralphs and Smart & Final. This week, I’ll share a follow up story with a surprising twist in outcomes.
Real World Story:
“So this week, I had a craving for homemade Mexican mole and cheese enchiladas topped with red cabbage, red, plump and delicious tomatoes and green onions. Don’t tell anyone, but I was exhausted from a couple of long days of work, so I decided to buy bottled mole sauce. For shame, I know! So off to Ralphs I go. I spot a spectacular sale on a large bottle of my now favorite mole. On my way to the checkout counter with my groceries, I spot one of my favorite Ralphs employees and ask her if the price is correct because it’s just too good to be true. Sure enough, the large bottle was more than twice the price of a regular bottle, and all the bottles were in the wrong location on the shelf.
A couple of days later, I get a hankering for moist and delicious peanut butter and chocolate cupcakes with a mini Reese’s peanut butter cup baked right inside of each one. The fluffy, creamy peanut butter topping is to die for! And I had just bought peanut butter at Smart & Final the night before. However, I noticed that I unknowingly purchased low-fat peanut butter. What? Yuck! So I head off to Smart & Final to buy other ingredients and to see if I can make a peanut butter exchange, without last night’s receipt.
The results…
At Ralphs, the store employee takes me to an empty checkout counter and rings up my items. She apologizes for the confusion with the mole bottles and says she’s going to charge me for the price of a regular bottle because the mix-up is not my fault. Wow! What a difference from my last price mix-up incident.
At Smart & Final, the cashier isn’t sure how to make an exchange, so she calls over her night manager who begrudgingly trudges over to us with an irritated look on her face. The first thing out of her mouth is, “We don’t even carry this brand. You didn’t buy this peanut butter from us!” After I walk her to the peanut butters and jams and show her the EXACT canister of peanut butter that I have in my hands, she says, “Oh, okay.” I sincerely apologized for the inconvenience no less than ten times, but she not once acknowledges my apologies. After the peanut butter exchange, after showing her my ID and signing a return slip, I simply walk out without buying any of the other items that I need. Wow! What a difference from my last visit.”
Strategies that Turn if Around:
- Be consistent. How can the same supermarket offer two polar-opposite types of customer service? Train and motivate all your employees to offer consistently great service—every day, every hour, every minute they are on the job.
- Train employees. Your employees should know every facet of their jobs. If you’re a cashier at a supermarket, you should know how to handle an exchange or a return.
- Never accuse a customer. One of the most damaging things you can do in customer service is to accuse a customer of lying. Don’t do it!
- Hire the right people. The key to this story is you need to hire people-friendly employees for positions that deal with customers. As I’ve said before, hire for personality, train for skills!
Remember: Customers come to you because they have some connection to your store, business or company. If you offer consistently great customer service, your customers will continue to come to you. If you don’t offer consistence service, they will go looking for it elsewhere because they’ll never be sure what to expect.
How do you maintain consistent service at your organization? Please share in the comments section below.