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Editors'
Note: CED welcomes Ron Slee to its lineup of regular columnists.
"Behind the Counter" will appear every other month, bringing
you some new perspectives and thought-prodding ideas for running
your dealership a little bit smarter than the day before.
Ron
is president of R.J. Slee & Associates, a management consulting
firm specializing in improving productivity, profitability
and market penetration. His focus is primarily on operational
aspects of businesses in the capital equipment industry. Along
with his consulting practice Ron operates management training
seminars through Quest, Learning Centers, and is a facilitator
for Dealer Twenty Groups, through Insight (M&R) Institute.
Ron's
company, an AED sustaining member, is headquartered in Rancho
Mirage, Calif. Contact him at (760) 776-5850.
As competition
intensifies and product differentiation decreases, customers
increasingly look to the experience that they have with your
dealership as the thing that makes the difference.
That experience
which the customer has with your business was correctly and
collectively called "moments of truth" in a book by that title
by Jan Carlzon when he was chairman of Scandinavian Air Services.
He described these moments as "anytime anyone has the opportunity
to make a judgement about the quality of service you provide."
And certainly anyone who can turn a moment of truth into a
momentous turning point for a customer is nothing less than
a hero.
So who
are the heroes of your business? They are the men and women
in your company who interact with and serve your customers.
NO
SUBSTITUTE FOR ATTENTION
Business guru and author John Naisbitt (who wrote Reinventing
the Corporation) has coined what I believe will be a new theme
for this customer service age: "As the world becomes more
high tech, people crave more high touch."
Isn't
that the truth? Think about it-ATMs, voice mail. Many things
in our society have become very impersonal. Yet we are living
in an age in which people want to be known as your customer.
They want personal attention. They want to be appreciated.
Experiences
in which we receive that kind of personal and attentive service
are becoming more and more difficult to find. For some time
now, I have been asking attendees at our management training
seminars to describe experiences that they have personally
received from a supplier that wowed them. It has not proven
to be an easy question to answer. There have not been many
illustrations given.
What
does that tell you?
It tells
me that we have stopped recognizing and acknowledging the
employees who provide "legendary service." We sometimes neglect
to delight our customers-perhaps, in our push for productivity,
we have forgotten what that means.
Well here's
a simple suggestion. Get a large loose leaf binder and put
a big bold title of HERO on it. Fill the binder with illustrations
of how your employees have provided your customers with a
wow!
From the
receptionist to the truck drivers, everyone who touches your
customers will have a story to tell about when they went the
extra mile to satisfy a customer. Each case should be on one
page in the binder with the employee's picture. Review these
cases with your employees regularly. Perhaps you will even
want to acknowledge a hero of the month.
Leave
the binders on the counters in the service department and
the parts department. Have one in your reception area or anywhere
your customers will be waiting in your store. Let them read
through them, and make sure that there are photos of the staff
in the binder so that customers can recognize them when they
are being served by one of your heroes.
This simple
idea might help turn the experiences that your customers have
into extraordinary ones: experiences that will set you apart.
Experiences that will make them "apostles" for your business.
After
all, isn't that what we want? Loyal, happy and satisfied customers.
Customers we can serve for life. Customers who will keep coming
back.
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