•    Carl Sewell, Paul B. Brown

1. By all means ask customers what they want, but ask politely, and don’t force them to answer. Present surveys in such a way that customers can ignore them if they don’t want to participate.

Checklist:

• don’t guess about what customer want: they’re more than willing to tell you.
• Make it easy for them to tell you
• An easy way to get 100% response – is to give customers that short survey when they pay
• Don’t pester them.

2. If the customer asks, the answer is always yes.

Checklist:

• the moment the customer says: "can you..." you should be prepared to answer yes, even if you can’t immediately figure out how to do what (s)he wants.
• Stretch : help your customer
• Don’t charge for this ‘extra’ service if you can help it. If it’s something that a friend would do for another friend, don’t charge. Don’t worry, you’ll more than make up the money in future business.

3. There’s no such thing as after hours

Checklist:

• you can’t just provide service between 9 AM and 5 PM. If you’re going to provide good service, you have to provide it around the clock
• one call should do it all
• don’t worry about people taking advantage of you: as a rule, they’ll only call if they really need help

4. Underpromise, over deliver

One of the worst things you can do is charge a customer more than your estimate. Build in a cushion so you can always charge a little less.

Checklist

• Build in a cushion
• No windfall profits
• Throw in some extras if you can

Being nice to people is just 20% of providing good customer service. The important part is designing systems that allow you to do the job right the first time. All the smiles in the world aren’t going to help you if your product or service is not what the customer wants.

Checklist:

• What can go wrong? That’s the question to ask in designing your systems. Examine every step you take in delivering your product or service, and see where there are possibilities for error or variation. Then figure out ways to eliminate them.
• What can be automated? By using computers wherever possible, you not only increase the speed of each transaction, you also decrease the chance for human error.
• Look to manufacturers, if you want to provide good service

6. Fire your inspectors

If a job is done wrong, the person who made the mistake must fix it and he shouldn’t be paid for setting it right. Since the company doesn’t get paid for doing a job over, neither should the person who did it wrong.

Checklist:

• if you have inspectors, get rid of them – inspectors don’t improve quality
• don’t pay people twice for the same job. No one – neither the company nor the worker – should make money if a job has to be redone. Service excellence and quality assurance should be a partnership
• talk about the mistakes. Log every single job that is brought back. As soon as it come in, fix it. Then find out how the problem was able to slip through in the first place.
• Hold daily quality meetings: to ensure you have a chance to talk about problems. These meetings should not be for managers only. Invite the people who actually do the work and deal with customers. They’re the ones who usually know what is going on.
• Look for patterns. Collect enough information so that over time you can spot trends and problem areas.

7. Fire your customer relations department, too

The people who deal with customers must have the authority to resolve problems

Checklist:

• Consumer relations departments separate you from the customer. So don’t have one
• Let your employee take care of their customers. If every employee is a customer service representative, then every employee should have the power to satisfy the customer.
• Nothing is more important than the customer. Employees must know no matter how many sales they make, or how productive they are, if they mistreat their customers they will be fired.

8. Do it right the first time

The most important thing to a customer is: Did you do what is promised? Keeping your word is worth more than all the empathy, smiles, and chocolates on your pillow in the world.

10 – point mental checklist that helps us do a job right the first time

1. What’s the benefit to the customer?
2. Will the customer easily understand that benefit?
3. What impact will this idea, program or system have on our employees?
4. How will it affect our existing systems?
5. Is anybody else doing it successfully? What can we learn from their experience?
6. What could go wrong?
7. Will it give us an advantage over our competitors?
8. How much will it cost?
9. Will it make money?
10. When should we evaluate it?

Checklist:

• Keep the service promise: Do what you’re supposed to do, when you are supposed to do it, is the very minimum required to provide good customer service.
• Sell the product you like the best: if you only recommend the best product for the job, or only suggest the best way of going about it, your customer is bound to end up happier than if you try to cut a corner or sell him something he didn’t need the result is the customer is likely to come back.
• You know you’re on the right track – when customers start expecting you to get it right every time. You want them to take that for granted.

9. When something goes wrong

Nobody likes to hear they’ve done a lousy job, but criticism from customers is more valuable than praise. You want your customers to tell you when you’ve screwed up, so that you can take care of the problem and take steps to ensure it doesn’t happen again – to them, or anybody else. If they don’t tell you, they’ll just walk away shaking their heads and they’ll never come back. Worse, you’re likely to alienate somebody else in the future by doing exactly the same thing.

Checklist:

• When something goes wrong.... and it will, no matter how hard you try, apologize. It’s easy, customers like it, but almost no one ever says they’re sorry. Then, immediately after you apologize, fix the problem while the customer is still there.
• Make it easy for customers to complain
• Everybody has a bad day. Even customers. If they lose their temper, forgive them. Go our of your way to make them feel comfortable about coming back.

9. How to have what your customers want

If a customer asks for something you don’t have, try to get it by calling a competitor and working out a trade. As long as the arrangement is reciprocal, your competition is likely to agree.

Checklist:

• Is it in stock? Should it be? How long has it been there? How many should we have? If your inventory system can’t answer these questions, you’re making your job of providing good customer service a lot harder than it has to be.
• What’s your inventory costing you?
• Measure your order-to-delivery cycle for each supplier and work toward having a ‘just in time’ inventory system.
• Establish trading partners

9. Good enough never is

Set high goals and keep raising them once you’ve achieved. If you don’t somebody will blow right by while you’re telling yourself what a great job you’ve done. Good enough never is

Checklist:

• being first is not good enough
• make it better: Once you have improved an idea, do it again. If you want to stay ahead of the pack, there must be continuous improvement... every where within your company.
• Periodically review every part of your operation. This will make it easy for you to find things that can be improved
• Skulduggery.. is good. You should periodically shop your competition and yourself, looking for places where you can improve.

A: Both

We always try to thank our customers for doing business with us, and we always try to thank our employees for doing a good job. Both those thank yous are equally important.

Checklist:

• Have you thanked your employees today?
• There are lots of things you can delegate.. but thanking people for doing a good job isn’t one of them.
• Whenever possible, show your gratitude on company time
• Create 110% awards.. and hand them our often. Plaques, pictures and pins really work.

11. The customer isn’t always right

Checklist:

• The customer is always right – up to a point: your job is to figure out what that point is
• Be taken advantage of with a smile – if you’ve decided to give the customer what he wants, give in completely and cheerfully.
• Customers are good: if a customer tells you he has a problem, the chances are 99 out of a 100 he really does. Don’t let the other 1% make you mistreat everyone else.

12. How to teach customers to get the best service

It’s a whole lot harder to do a repair right, or to provide good service, if you don’t know what needs to be fixed or what the customer wants. Find ways to get your customers to spend an extra ten minutes to describe in detail what needs to be repaired or what they want you to do. It will be time well spent for both of you.

Checklist:

• Let the customers help you provide good service
• If you smile, odds are they’ll smile back
• Explain to customers how you do things

13. Creating frequent buyers

Checklist:

• Stay in touch: once you have identified your best customers, communicate with them regularly. Maybe you send them a newsletter or invite them to a party. But between purchases, show they’re not forgotten.
• How often should you say thank you? Every time you get a chance.
• Blow your own horn – subtly. Every time you correspond with a customer, include something along with the letter. It could be the description of a new product or service or the fact that they’ve extended your hours or have scheduled a sale.

14. Making sure you have the best people.

If people have performed well in the past they’ll probably perform well in the future. So, in the interviewing, look for people who have been successful and leaders.

Checklist:

• Smart is good. Test for intelligence. All other things being equal, it’s better to hire someone who’s bright than someone who isn’t.
• Test to a template
• Interview as many people as you can
• Ask about their past successes
• Are they going to fit in?

15. Developing service superstars

Checklist:

• Once you’ve hired someone – talk about what it takes to succeed in your company. Give examples of your company’s values and it’s heroes.
• Don’t be afraid to fire folks

One of the questions we constantly ask our people is: How can we help you make more money?

• Pay more, willingly
• That extra money is not a gift
• You’ll get a good return on this investment
• Don’t change the rules in the middle of the game

18. Partnership Pay

19. You can’t fake it

• Decide to be best
• The boss must set the example
• Celebrate your successes

Checklist:

• Look the part. Act the part
• If you’re not a designer get one. Look for experienced people. It will save you time and money.
• Welcome to my home: the easiest way to set the right tone is to think of your business as your home.

21. Your mother was right: manners really are important

If you want your employees to be polite to your customers, you have to be polite to your employees

• If that’s how they take care of the restrooms, how’ll they take care of me?
• When was the last time (if ever) you thought about your signs?
• If the boss is a crook, you can’t expect the employees to be honest.
• The only dress code you’ll ever need

Section 8: Creating products that are easy to sell.

• Make a little, sell a little

• before you spend the big bucks... try your idea on a small scale and see what happens. This concept works equally well for products, services and pay plans
• do everything possible to minimize your risk. Introduce as a limited time offer.
• What’s important to your customer today?

• You can’t give good service if you sell a lousy product

Section 9: Borrow, borrow, borrow

• Why reinvent the wheel? Just improve it

If an idea works in one place, you can be pretty certain it will work in another. People are just not that different from one another.

Checklist:

• Borrow. It’s quicker
• Borrow from the best
• Actively search for ideas to borrow
• Don’t be afraid to tinker

• The things you don’t know are the history you haven’t read.