Who of
your stakeholders are more important? Some people may argue that it is a
company’s shareholders or investors; others may suggest employees and
customers. Even though a company needs to foster and build a relationship with
all their stakeholders, I err on the side of the latter. Customers and
employees are possibly the two most important stakeholders for the longevity of
any organisation. If you don’t have customers to buy your product or service
you won’t stay in business for very long; but, you can only deliver on your
brand promises if you have the right team on your side.
Recently I
was reminded about the importance of customer service when I ordered flowers
for one of my team members. What I had ordered online wasn’t nearly what had
been delivered. The quality, value and even the type of flowers did not even
closely resemble what had been advertised on their website. I understand and
appreciate that everyone is under COVID-19 pressure stress and emotions run
high, especially when it comes to parting with your money in an uncertain
economy. But that is even more reason for companies to be looking after their
reputations and making sure that they deliver value that they promise.
When it
comes to an unsatisfied customer consider these guidelines:
1.
Communication policy: First and foremost make sure that you have at minimum a communication
policy in place. This will guide you and your team with the procedures to
follow when engaging with different stakeholders. Messages to share, channels
to use and turnaround times should be included in the document.
2.
Consistency. When
it comes to reputation management, consistency builds reputations. You are
either consistently good, which builds a good reputation. You can also be
consistently bad or consistently inconsistent, both of which contributes to a
negative reputation. Having policies and procedures documented will help your
team to know how to consistently deliver products and services within set
parameters.
As part of consistency, your messages that you share needs to be aligned
between everyone who will be communicating with your customers. When I look at
the correspondence between myself and the said business, I had reached out to
them via email, telephone and when they failed to get back to me as they promised,
I resorted to social media. Every single message communicated back to me was
different; not even the social media managers’ feedback was aligned between
their Twitter and Facebook pages.
3.
Care. Show
empathy and that you actually care about your customer. Had I received a call
from the business to let me know that they did not have stock of the flowers
that I had ordered, I would have gladly discussed alternative options. But no,
they changed my bouquet to a lower value one, in fact 15% cheaper than the one
I had ordered. They used totally different flowers and didn’t have the decency
to let me know that they would be changing the order and would be delivering
something different and inferior. What added to my frustration was that they
didn’t offer to reimburse me the difference between the different bouquets.
Only when I questioned everything and kicked up a fuss was I offered either a
full refund or replacement. Had I not followed up, they would have pocketed the
15% difference.
Don’t blame COVID-19 for poor service. COVID-19 is just highlighting the
gaps in your processes, so use this lockdown to update all your policies and
procedures.
4.
Continuous improvement. The only way to improve is to take feedback to heart and to actually
listen and act on what your unhappiest customers have to say about your product
or service.
To measure
what your customers think of your reputation, or for more information on
Reputation Matters contact research@reputationmatters.co.za or visit www.reputationmatters.co.za. Follow Reputation Matters on Facebook (@yourreputationmatters) or
Twitter (@ReputationIsKey).
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