National Clothesline

Do you believe you are ahead of other companies with your marketing?

Over the last few months, Nordstrom’s and J.C. Penny started a new service for customers who opt in — text messaging. Today’s young people are tomorrow’s drycleaning customers. Watch those thumbs busily pushing buttons and you will see the newest form of communication. If you want to stay ahead of your competition, you must think out of the box.

I recently cleaned out some old files and came across a little blurb in the Los Angeles Times from June 9, 1996 about the cost of laundering a man’s shirt. The average price in Los Angeles in 1996 was $1.57, London $2.88, Toronto $1.36, Paris $5.38 and Vienna $6.68.

Have you raised your prices recently? Have your costs of operation increased? A real customer will not leave because of a price increase. Please remember that.

Jerry Fritz, a customer service expert at the University of Wisconsin in Madison said, “You’ll never have a product or price advantage again. They can be easily duplicated, but a strong customer service culture can’t be copied.”

I really like that quote because it can be directly applied to our industry.

Let us look at what Mr. Fritz is saying and see how it applies to your company. If you are a discounter, anybody can lower prices to match yours. If you are a high-end company, anyone can raise prices and provide the same product you are providing. Nobody has exclusivity on offering high quality workmanship or mass production.

Mr. Fritz’s final words are the most important, “a strong customer service culture can’t be copied.”

Who creates that customer service culture? How do you achieve a customer service culture that cannot be copied? It starts right at the top of the company and goes through to the lowest paid employee. Because you are the employer, your attitude will be the guide for your entire staff.

You hire the people. Either you or a manager will train the people. Your employees will emulate the way you treat your customers who have complaints. It is easy to be nice to customers when they do not complain, but how do you treat your customer if there is a problem?

Think about brainstorming with your customer service representatives regarding customer complaints At a CSR training meeting, discuss specific solutions to one-of-a kind situations. Be creative and do not allow anyone to criticize. The important thing is for everyone to be able to speak freely. Bizarre, crazy ideas are fine. Consider having a contest as to who can come up with the most ideas.

At the following sales training meeting have a formatted method of dealing with customer issues utilizing the best ideas from your brainstorming session. Provide that list to your customer service representatives. Have your CSRs role-play and use the tactics you have just given them.

The following are some accepted steps you can take to satisfy a customer who has a complaint. These would be in addition to any solutions that came up at your brainstorming session.

Step 1 is to apologize to the customer for the problem. Do not get defensive. When there is a problem, some CSRs will start making excuses, such as “the spotter doesn’t see too well,” “the seamstress lost her thimble,” or “the press machine broke down.”

The customer does not care what happened in the back of the plant. The customer has a problem and wants it resolved, so apologize and tell the customer you are sorry.

Step 2 is to take notes regarding the customer’s complaint. You cannot possibly remember every detail of the customer’s unhappiness. Either use the invoice or a pad of paper and notate what the customer is telling you. If you do this, the customer will see that you care and want to handle things correctly.

Step 3 is to get all the facts you can. Make certain that you know exactly what happened. Repeat what you have written down so that you and the customer are on the same page.

Step 4 is inspecting the area of complaint. If the customer is calling in the complaint, have a manager respond to the phone call and offer to visit the customer’s home to see the problem, or have a route driver pick up the item. If the customer is in the plant, offer to bring the production manager or counter sales manager to look at what is creating the issue.

Step 5 is telling the customer what you are going to do to work out the problem and when you are going to have the garment ready. Be certain that the customer understands the company is going to resolve the problem to the best of its ability.

Step 6 occurs after the customer leaves the store. Take action and be certain that the manager knows about the problem and what needs to be done to satisfy the customer. In my plant, when a garment was being reprocessed the manager would have to sign off on the do-over invoice before it was put back on the conveyor. Having to reprocess a garment more than one time is inexcusable.

Step number 7 is calling the customer after the garment has been reprocessed. Inform your customer that your manager and you have both inspected the item and the complaint has been resolved.

How many companies will call a customer and let them know their do-over is corrected and complete? If the correction cannot be made, the customer should be told. Being honest with your client during a telephone call will save a lot of time at the counter.

Of course, you will not be able to please every customer but these steps will get you started on the right foot.

I recently read a preview of a book about customer service, due out in April, by John DiJulius. The book is titled What’s the Secret? The author has 10 tips for better customer service.

The tips are:

• Service vision, a clear purpose of why the business exists.

• World-class internal culture that attracts, hires and retains only the people who have service DNA.

• Nonnegotiable experiential standards everyone must follow.

• Secret service systems to personalize customers’ experience, engage and anticipate their needs.

• Training , systems and processes that remove variation and provide a consistent customer experience.

• Implementation and execution to go from idea to consistent execution.

• Anticipation of service defects and protocols in place to correct mistakes.

• Constant awareness and branding of how to be a hero to customers.

• Measurement of the customer’s experience (what gets measured gets managed).

• World-class leadership — walk the talk.

If you take the ten tips, and add them to the rest of the information you have just read, you are on the way to having a strong customer service culture that cannot be copied.