Customer Service is an attitude
Yesterday my mom called Avis in a panic. She’s visiting me right now from the East coast, and as such she’s feeling the jet lag. She was supposed to pick up her rental car at 10am, but hadn’t realized what day it was until I mentioned that tomorrow (today now) would be Thursday. When she called the 1800 number she was greeted by an attitude of rudeness. Not only was she told that the car wasn’t available, but she was also informed that there wouldn’t be one the next day and that she should have been on time. She ended up calling the local branch of Avis and they were able to get a car for her, but the local branch was also surprised at the rudeness she’d gotten.
The local rep did point out that they probably wouldn’t have had a car for her if so many other people hadn’t also not shown up to get their reservation. But he was also very polite about the situation and didn’t shoot her down from the start. All the same , she and I agreed that the attitude of the first customer rep at the 1800 line for Avis had soured us on Avis as a car rental place. And to me it illustrated a fundamental reality of customer service: You only need to have one rotten experience to overshadow all the positive experiences you’ve had with a company, and it takes a lot more effort to undo the harm of the negative customer experience.
At the root of customer service is attitude. The attitude you convey to your clients is what tells them whether you value them or think you could do without them. The truth however is that you can’t do without them, so a bad attitude hurts you far more than it does them. Customers who have bad experiences are more likely tell people about those experiences because they want to tell their friends to avoid the businesses that don’t provide superb customer service.
Customer service isn’t just about rectifying mistakes (though its usually thought of in that capacity). Customer service begins from the moment of first contact and occurs in every situation, in every context. If you are interacting with a customer, you are performing customer service. As such customer service is a full time job and no matter what job title you have, customer service is always something you’ll provide, whenever you come into contact with someone else.
What do you think? What’s your attitude about customer service?
Categories: Business reputation, customer service
Tags: Attitude, Business reputation, customer service, customers, Taylor Ellwood
