I have worked in several sectors, some of which have been very retail biased. Whilst Head Office has been very focussed on Customer Service are branches necessarily the same or do they just pay lip service to it?
The key for me has always been to treat the Customer with courtesy, a bit like the old mantra treat others as you would like to be treated.
What disappoints me is the number of companies out there who wait for things to go wrong and then do nothing about it.
All companies will have mistakes, its a learning curve, its what you choose to do in response that makes the difference.
If something has gone wrong acknowledge the error, look at how it happened, and most importantly what you can do to prevent its reoccurence. Communicate this to the Customer with your apology. They much prefer you to acknowledge you were in the wrong, it makes you human, and the fact that you are doing something to stop it happening again makes them feel that you have considered their complaint properly.
Why not go one step further, be pro-active. Take time to look round your organisation, what could go wrong, if it did how could you fix it, how likely is it to go wrong? Could the wording on your documents be misconstrued in any way?
Do your staff make promises that they cannot keep?
Take the time to look at these things, and the risk factor involved.
Customer Service is key to maintaining the relationship, make sure you work at it as hard as you do other elements of your business.
