Are Happy Customers Just A Fable?

David G. Champagne

By David G. Champagne, Vice President & Founder of Beacon Distributors, Inc., Harrisville, RI  

Have you ever heard the Greek fable of Sisyphus?  He was punished by the gods. His punishment was to push a huge boulder up a hill and just before it got to the top, it would roll back down. He was punished for all eternity to do this same task over and over and over and…

Happy customers and great customer service are very similar to this fable. Just as soon as we are done, we have to start all over again! And sometimes we get run over by the rock! Or at least it feels that way!

Keeping customers happy is key to repeat sales, and repeat sales is central to how our industry works. The question before us is, “How do we make customers happy?” And now the answer to this question … there isn’t ONE!

Customers, like every other category of people, are made up of a variety of personalities and temperaments. What works for one will not work for all. Usually, we don’t know what will MAKE a customer happy, never mind KEEPING them happy!  And what works today may not work tomorrow, or even later today!

Like everyone else, the needs and desires of customers are formed by the circumstances and situations they are surrounded by — and which are constantly changing. If by chance you do know how to keep a specific customer happy, how can you be sure all your staff members who encounter the same customer also have that knowledge? To keep customers happy, you need to use a wide variety of tools with all your customers, all the time. This means providing customer service that results in happy customers is not just an individual responsibility but an organizational one!

Good customer service starts with a positive attitude toward the customer. In order for that to exist in a company, it has to be modeled by the people at the top and instilled in everyone at the company.  Badmouthing a customer will not help, from anyone! The company culture has to be imbedded with gratitude and thankfulness for the customer. The golden rule (Do unto others as you would have them do unto you) is key. In our personal and business lives, we are all customers. How do we want to be treated?  Then treat others that way!

Here are some aspects that should be part of your company culture:

• Under promise and over deliver — do more than you tell the customer you will do;
• NEVER lie — trust is best defined as honesty over time;
• Be flexible on the “rules” — after all, most of the time YOU created the rules;
• Appreciate their business — and say, “Thank You!”; and,
• Be polite and respectful to everyone — rarely do you know exactly what position or authority the person you are talking with has within the customer’s structure, or if they may show up at a later time representing a different company.

Here are some tools that should be practiced by everyone to keep customers happy:

• Admit the error, even if it is not yours, and get it corrected!;
• When a customer is complaining, LISTEN, don’t argue;
• Provide options for order entry and getting account information; and,
• It’s OK to say, “I don’t know.” Then get an answer and tell the customer.

My goal for this article is not to give you THE answer to happy customers, but to have you look at what you do and how you can do it better. Good customer service results in happy customers. Good customer service should be like breathing … you do it without even knowing you are doing it!

Watch out for the rolling boulder!

Beacon Distributors, Inc., founded in 1990, is based in Harrisville, RI. Our principal service area is a 50-mile radius from our location which takes in about 50 percent of the geography and 70 percent of the population of the tri-state area of Rhode Island, Massachusetts, and Connecticut. We do have customers throughout the Northeast, and across the country. We offer a full jan/san selection of products as well as safety supplies and foodservice disposables. Working with our DPA partners, we are able to source virtually anything our customers want. Beacon is a full-service vendor for our customers, offering Vendor Managed Inventory, state-of-the-art online capabilities, equipment demos and service, dispenser installation, and end-user training. Visit beacondistributors.com.