Customer Service Crucial to
Maintain Clientele

MANILA, PHILIPPINES
reprinted from BusinessWorld Magazine

Singapore-based marketing guru Ron Kaufman last week shared trade secrets on improving an organization's customer service program in a one-day seminar at the Makati Shangri-La.

The seminar, entitled "Ron Kaufman in Unbelievable! Serving, Sizzling, and Succeeding Your Way To The Top," was organized by TeamAsia and the Young Entrepreneurs' Organization.

Speaking before over 500 participants from 46 companies nationwide, Mr. Kaufman gave an upbeat and dynamic presentation of the four components essential to achieving marketing success.

He spoke on how to increase customer base, achieving improved levels of sales, service and performance, and building relationships with customers, suppliers and team members.

Each of the four components is made up of strategies that seek to break the old mindset on dealing with the customer.

In an interview after the seminar, he told BusinessWorld, "I have been all over the world and people are realizing that improved customer service is important to gain advantage. And so, if you have a great product and provide fast delivery but if you don't have the right customer service, the customer is going to find business some place else."

He noted that Filipinos possess the natural ingredient for good customer service. "The Filipino people have the natural ability to give good service. They are warm people, they are spirited, kind, caring and friendly people."

But he added, "Filipinos are too busy competing with each other that they fail to compete with the world." To complement this hospitable nature, he challenged participants to work on improving their speed, ingenuity, reliability and quality.

He said to achieve superior service, a company must have an excellent product, and must have a good delivery system, service mindset, and should develop long-term relationships.

"Customers remember surprising and unbelievable things companies do for its customers."

He said when a company causes inconvenience, it must initiate moves to recover a customer's loyalty, including sending a letter of apology or a gift. "When you do something more than the expected, the customer's loyalty will move up to a higher level than what it was when the problem occurred."

Mr. Kaufman said a good service recovery strategy is another step to gain customer loyalty. This could involve apologizing, solving the problem fast, empathizing with the customer and implementing improvements.

"Don't stop working when they stop complaining, stay in touch until you are sure the customer comes back and their long-term loyalty is assured."

The people in a company, he added, must take personal responsibility for their actions towards their customers, whether they are frontline service providers or managers.

Mr. Kaufman said a problem among Asians is that people are always "waiting for the boss to give them permission or to tell them what to do."

"Those days are over the person at the front line should be able to make a decision and act upon it. The worst thing is when that person makes a mistake. So what? You learn and then next time you don't make that mistake again."

He said there must be a stop to blaming others. Taking personal responsibility for actions is a proactive way of dealing with the situation. On top of this, he said working as a team will produce better and more rewarding results. "Front-line service providers are key drivers in any great service organization. But remember the power of the 'back-end' to win or lose the race."

Mr. Kaufman cited the example of an Italian Grand Prix winner who stayed in first position since his pit crew was 1.3 seconds faster than the competitor.

Lastly, Mr. Kaufman noted the need to see the world from the point of view of others, particularly from the customers.

"It takes effort to see the world from another person's point of view, but doing so produces rewarding results." In this way, he added problems are solved faster and innovations discovered.

Copyright, Ron Kaufman. All rights reserved.
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