Many of you know me as an advocate for the Parts and Service operations within equipment dealerships. Some of you have attended my sessions at the NTEA conventions. It is from that perspective, the operational side of dealerships that I write and teach and consult. It is this group of people within the Parts and Service departments that have more customer contact than the rest of the business. It is this group that generates the necessary profit to allow the business to continue operations and be competitive in the marketplace. It is this group that needs to become more professional and get more market penetration and higher and higher levels of customer satisfaction and loyalty.

As competition intensifies and product differentiation decreases, the customer increasingly looks to the “experience” that they have with your dealership as THE thing that makes the difference. The experience that the customer has with your business has been aptly named “The Moment of Truth” by Jan Carlzon, when he was Chairman of SAS (Scandinavian Air Service). He described these moments as “anytime anyone has the opportunity to make a judgment about the quality of service you provide.” So who are YOUR Champions? They are the men and women in your Company who interact with and serve your customers.

John Naisbitt 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: the ATM; Voice Mail, self service gas stations. Many things have become very impersonal. Yet we are living in an age where people want to be known as your customer. They want personal attention. They want to be appreciated. To coin a phrase from an old television show “everyone wants to go to a place where they know your name.”

Experiences where 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 do not know what it means 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 where one of your employees has provided your customer with a “WOW.” From the receptionist to the truck drivers, everyone who touches your customers will have a story to tell about a case where they went the “extra mile” to satisfy a customer. Each story should be on one page in the binder with the employee’s picture. Review these cases with your employees regularly. Perhaps you will want to acknowledge the HERO of the month.

Leave the binders on the counters in the Service Department, the Parts Department. Have one in your reception area or anywhere that your customers will be waiting in your store. Let them read through them. Make sure that there are pictures in the binder of the employees so that the customer can recognize them when they are being served by one of your heroes.

This simple idea might help turn the experiences that your customer has 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.

Harvard University did the definitive study in the middle of the 1990’s on customer service. They developed what they called the “Service Profit Chain”. This chain starts from “Employee Satisfaction and Loyalty.” Satisfied and knowledgeable personnel create “Service Value.” This Service Value is what customers feel and hear and experience when they deal with your company. This Service Value is what creates “Satisfied and Loyal Customers.” And finally the Satisfied and Loyal Customers create “Profits and Growth.”

• Employee Satisfaction and Loyalty
• Service Value
• Customer Satisfaction and Loyalty
• Profits and Growth

In fact the study showed that in the Industrial Distribution Business, of which we are a part, would realize a 45% increase in company profit if there were an increase of 5% in customer retention. Imagine that, an increase of nearly 50% in company profits.

So who are your heroes? I think it is pretty obvious. It is those hard working people in parts and service who keep your customers coming back.