Make it easy for your people to serve customers.
They shouldn’t have to say, “Don’t tell anyone I did this for you.”
Instead, be the Ritz-Carlton. Each employee is given an individual, daily budget to create a wow experience for a customer, or for “service recovery.” (That’s to fix, or even over-fix, an error or problem for a customer.)
New to SmallBizSurvival.com? Take the Guided Tour. Like what you see? Get our updates.
- Stop using “3 legged stool” to describe any idea - June 24, 2019
- What are your challenges? Add your voice here - June 17, 2019
- How to publicize your biking trails before they’re finished - June 10, 2019
- How $5 and a bowl of soup can rebuild your community - June 3, 2019
- Getting people to mix at an event - May 27, 2019
- Crowdsourced ideas for coffee shops and other third places - May 20, 2019
- Post signs with your tourism hashtag where visitors will see them - May 13, 2019
- Book review: Celebrity CEO by Ramon Ray - May 6, 2019
- How to develop an entrepreneurial culture and more small businesses in your town - April 29, 2019
- Where’s your town’s future mural? - April 22, 2019
Hi Becky,
Great advice. Simple, succinct and right on target. Plus you brought back memories, because much of my early understanding of what makes great customer service came from a one-month (temporary) stint at a Ritz Carlton hotel. From how to answer the telephone to closing the loop on every customer request, the Ritz Carlton way gave me a deep awareness of what it means and what it takes to do customer service right.
Hope you’re having a great weekend,
Daria
Daria, I’m so glad you shared your experience with Ritz Carlton. More of us need to take action on these ideas!
Daria added another thought on Twitter:
“I had to learn that it’s OK from customer service POV to check that task was done. Instinct was to assume it was… but if it isn’t, the customer’s unhappy and the brand suffers. It required culture change for me to recog. okay to verify.”
As a former waiter in a 3-star restaurant chain called Papa Razzi, I remember when the manager grouped us one morning for a pow-wow.
To paraphrase:
“The customer is always right. Anything the customer asks for, the customer gets unless we can’t do it. You can yell at the chef, you can yell at me, but never yell at the customer.”
Something like that. It stuck with me. Easy customer service.
Ari, I love the part about “Never yell at the customer.” I’ve known some folks who need to learn that particular lesson.