Customer Service Helper

Become a Courtesy Expert - Change the Way You Approach Customer Service

It’s 6:30am and you trudge off to your local coffee shop for your early morning coffee. You’re running late and as you walk in you see a huge line-up. There are only two people working and one of them is a trainee. You take your place in line and hope that everyone orders a regular coffee. No such luck. All you hear are specialty orders and you know there’s no way your going to make it to work on time. To make matters worse the staff isn’t in any particular hurry to clear the back log. They continue to chat about the party they attended the other night seemingly oblivious to the fact that the line keeps swelling.

People start to huff and puff and comment on the bad service. Gradually they get impatient and leave. You wait another five minutes but the line doesn’t seem to get any shorter and decide to call it quits. You walk across the street to another coffee shop. The place is just as busy but orders are moving quickly because there are four people working. Within two minutes you are on your way to work and arrive on-time. Tomorrow you decide to go to the same coffee shop.

This is an all-to-familiar scenario in which bad customer service has cost the business money. Can businesses really afford to lose customers because of poor service? I don’t think so and in today’s competitive landscape, every customer is important.

That being said, what can you do to augment your level of customer service so people stand-up and take notice? Why not become a courtesy expert and change the way you approach customer service. Courtesy is defined as something being done out of politeness or consideration for another person. This is a perfect definition for what you should be striving to achieve in your customer service.

Your path towards becoming a courtesy expert starts with understanding what experience you wish to create for your customers. When they walk, phone or visit your website you should know what type of experience they are having because you took the time to create it. For example, when they come to your studio are they greeted warmly? Can the staff answer any question related to the business? Are they empowered to make decisions? Do they look professional and genuinely happy to help people? Do people leave your business feeling happy and taken care of? These are important factors to customers and integral to the way they view your business.

With a courtesy mindset you look for different ways to help your customers. For example, in our coffee shop scenario the staff could have changed the customers’ perception about the bad service by paying closer attention to the customers needs instead of chatting about the party they went to. They could have made eye contact and acknowledged to the customers that they were doing their best to hurry things along.

It’s the Managers responsibility to ensure that trainees are supported by veteran staff especially during busy times. Keeping the mood light and being polite and courteous with customers goes along way towards helping the customer empathize with the situation. They may not be crazy about waiting for a coffee but they would still wait because they would at least feel like the staff cared about the inconvenience.

Donna Hutchinson is the owner of On The Edge Fitness Educators, offering business coaching services to fitness professionals, helping them start and grow their own fitness businesses.