Customer Service Helper

The Customer First and Last – A Business Focus

Putting the customer first and last must be one of the cornerstones of any business. After all without a customer, you don’t have a business.

An interesting excerpt from an original 1912 L.L. Bean Catalog , written by the founder of the company illustrates this understanding of customer relationships :

“We will thank anyone to return goods that are not perfectly satisfactory. Above all things, we wish to avoid having a dissatisfied customer”.

It seems that Mr. Bean had a keen understanding as to who actually paid the bills and made his fortune. His competition in the mail order business at the time thought he was completely nuts. Today the L. L. Bean company is still around and almost everyone else who ridiculed Mr. Bean’s strange notion of customer service, has closed up shop.

Let us assume that customer service is the sum total of all interactions that keep a business focused on its customers. Also assume that the customer is a person that has already made a purchase Then every business does perform some customer service function, even though it may be too small to actually have a customer service department.

All too often today companies claim to have a customer first focus but in reality give little or no real follow through that the customer actually feels. Today one associates customer service with having to fight for the benefits that the company boasted they would stand behind as part of their sales pitch. Who amongst us has not walked away from a so called customer service interaction feeling really upset and sorry for having made the initial purchase? And who amongst us has not felt good when a company does stand behind its promises, leaving you, the customer feeling satisfied?

Besides marketing and advertising, the goodwill generated through word of mouth between potential customers is essential. A growing number of bad customer experiences can be the very death of a business, but a growing band of customer followers can mean incredible growth for a company.

Naturally being able to market and sell product well is essential to any company, but no matter how good the product is, a lack of after sales service gets known amongst consumers and this often leads to a drop in sales. Companies grow when they are able to define themselves in terms of the benefits they offer to their customers. Over time even the very products that companies produce change as their customers do. For example, in order to meet changing health concerns that customers have, many fast food restaurants have completely changed their menus to include healthier choices like salads. So they have increased sales through changing their product mix to suit their customers.

So how does a company get customer focused? By producing products and services that their customers want and delivering them in a manner that the customer expects. Sounds simple, but it does change the viewpoint of the business to be more outward oriented to see things from the customer’s point of view, rather than just product oriented. Even in 1912, Mr. Bean understood this concept and believed that the “customer was the most important person in this office”.

The question every business owner should ask themselves is what kind of company do I want to run? A company that is good at keeping customers who keep coming back in the future or one that is solely focused on the sales numbers? Over the long term customer focused companies have proven to be far more successful and have thrived.

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