Customer Service in a Social Media Age - 30/06/2011

People have many reasons for visiting their preferred coffee shop, and many factors that influence that decision. In the majority of cases it is a pure free market decision, there is a good choice of options and people make decisions based on their particular preferences.

Convenience is the often cited (quite correctly) number one reason for an individual choosing to use a particular coffee shop.  For individuals in a hurry, the ability to grab a coffee on the run that tastes great every time is vital, and convenience is the key decision factor.  These are the lifeblood customers of many coffee shops driving turnover and profit. I call these the grab’n’go users.

At the other end of the scale are the individuals I refer to as the social users. I fall into this category. I use my preferred coffee shop for meeting clients and colleagues as well as friends and family. The coffee shop is a hub for my everyday life, a place to relax and have fun as well as an environment in which I feel comfortable developing professional business relationships… and even writing this article. I’m not thinking about how important it is to get served quickly or how many minutes I have to get to my next appointment the moment I enter the shop.  I am a social user.

Customer service is the common denominator in a competitive world. Poor customer service will drive away both the grab’n’go users and the social users. The old adage goes that if you receive bad customer service you are likely to tell 8-10 people, where as if you receive good service you may only tell 1-2 people, has never been truer. The real problem now is that I suspect that old adage is out of date. I have a friend who is a frenetic ‘Twitterer’, she has 23 people following her, so every time she sends a tweet her 23 followers instantly get to hear about what she’s doing. Those friends, assuming they agree and trust her opinion; may then re-tweet that message to their followers, and so on and so on. I’m a bit of a reluctant latecomer to the world of social media, but I can no longer afford to ignore its power. The new adage should be if you receive bad customer service you are likely to tell 100 people within a few minutes of it happening.

Research by Utah University indicates that a typical business only hears from 4 percent of its dissatisfied customers. The other 96 percent quietly go away. Of this 96 percent, 68 percent never reveal their dissatisfaction because they perceive an attitude of indifference in the owner, manager or employee. This reinforces the fact that you’ll only find out about delivering consistently bad customers’ service when it’s too late, as your turnover and profit slowly slip away.

The same research also points out that it takes 12 positive service incidents to make up for one negative incident. It most cases I suspect that a chance would be a fine thing, as many of those poorly served customers are unlikely to return, and if they do you will have to work 12 times as hard to win them round again.

The research goes on to say that seven out of ten complaining customers will do business with you again if you resolve the complaint in their favour. If you resolve it on the spot, 95 percent will do business with you again.

I am truly amazed and staggered when I come across overtly bad customer service in today’s competitive market. There is no excuse. Thankfully, whilst it still does happen, overtly bad customer service is a rare thing. The real problem remains with what I refer to as secondary bad customer service. This is the list of small things that add up to create a bad customer experience. Often those individuals providing the service do not even realise these are happening. In the case of coffee shops this includes waiting a little bit too long in a queue, a cluster of tables that need clearing, scruffy looking point of sale material, the too strong promotional push, and the list could go on.

Individuals who constantly deliver overtly bad customer service should have a re-think about their career option. Individuals and organisations that have a challenge around secondary bad customer service should think about the consistency, content and delivery of their customer service training. Staff assessment is crucial and setting expectations of how we treat the customers coming through the door more so. 

I am pleased to say that the City & Guilds VRQ Barista Skill Training includes a very important Customer Service Skills element and is available through the BSA.

If I think back only 10 to 15 years I think that generally customer service has improved in many ways. Organisations are taking a more structured and empowering approach to customer service, making each individual responsible for the customer service experience. The part I would like to see further improvement is consistency, each and every customer contact moment has the potential to be bad or great, let’s keep working towards making it great. In a world of Twitter, Facebook and blogs this has never been more important.

Sally Hughes
Director
Incite On Ltd