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We all know the time-honored Golden Rule: “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.”

It’s a catchy little slogan, easy to remember, and uses an antiquated word like “unto” to give it sort of a biblical air of authority.  And, at first blush, it seems like a pretty good philosophy, figuring that if certain treatment is good enough for me, then it must be good enough for others.

But if you scratch at the surface of this statement a little bit, you see that it is really a self-centered philosophy, and therefore, perhaps not the best motto for businesses that want to provide top-notch service to their customers. 

As most savvy businesspeople know, one size does not fit all.  Customers come in all shapes, sizes, colors, ethnic origins, and levels of intelligence, patience, and technological competency.  But they are all customers, or at the very least, prospective customers, and as such, deserve to be treated not the way you, yourself, want to be treated, but the way they want to be treated.  And for the variety of customers you have, that may well mean communicating in a variety of different ways.

It is a very common and costly mistake for decision-makers in businesses to decide, unilaterally, that customer inquiries, complaints, and other communication shall be handled in a certain manner.  Typically, these decisions are made based on internal concerns, such as staffing issues, or making use of available technology.

I once worked for a web-based business whose telephone number was hidden on one obscure page on a multi-faceted web site.  And, if you were savvy enough to find the phone number, here was the pot of gold at the end of that rainbow: the toll-free number posted was only for “Press Inquiries;” the Customer Support phone number was a local number.  That basically tells customers, “OK wise guy, although we’ve made it pretty clear that we want you to contact us via email, so that we can take our time in responding to your question, you insist upon calling us on the telephone – so you can pay for the call!”  A not-so-subtle thumbing of the nose at customers.

When I discussed this matter with my superiors, they all said pretty much the same thing: “We’re not staffed sufficiently to handle phone calls.”  I asked how we knew this, since we had not ever encouraged customers to call.  I was told to do the math.  Take the number of emails that our support reps answered per day, and translate that into telephone calls.  An email system, tied into a CRM system, can take ready-made answers to common problems, and be plugged into a message with a point and a click.  Furthermore, polite greetings and closings to each email can be written once, in a template, and easily utilized with a point and a click.  No muss, no fuss.  But with telephone calls, you actually have to verbalize a greeting to people, and listen to them talk, and then think up an answer while they are waiting on the other line.  Furthermore, sometimes they are angry or confused, and that can be downright unpleasant.  I was told that we can provide a better level of service to our customers if we funnel their communication to email.  And after all, we were a web-based business, so having our customers use a web-based application such as email was not an unreasonable request.

Maybe yes, maybe no.  In this particular business, the web site was used for research purposes.  The web site was typically available 24 hours per day, seven days per week.  The customer support team, however, was staffed Monday through Friday, from 7 AM to 7 PM, Eastern Time.  That leaves twelve hours each weekday, and 48 hours over the weekend, where no responses were provided to customers.  Granted, we set their expectations – all customer inquiries were promptly answered with an automated reply, which thanked the customer for contacting us, and stated our goal of responding to their inquiry within 1 business day.  So you can’t say we were trying to put something over on anyone.  However, if you are researching something, and are under a deadline, and are working hours that do not fall under “normal business hours” for an East Coast business, you are out of luck if you need immediate assistance.  So you can’t say we were treating the customer the way they wanted to be treated, either.

There is a cost to doing business.  If you want your customer’s hard-earned money in return for your product or service, you need to figure out ways to communicate with them in their comfort zone.  Doing so encourages them to tell you things you need to know about your business, like what you are doing wrong and what you are doing right.  Not doing so essentially points them to the door and says, “If you don’t like it, see ya later.”  While certainly, no right-thinking business would articulate such a thing, actions do have a tendency to speak louder than words.  Think about that when setting up your customer service processes.

One of my favorite online businesses is Amazon.com.  But even they don’t abide by this golden rule of customer service.  They pride themselves on an easy-to-navigate web site, an intuitive ordering system and an automated order tracking system, all of which generally makes for a pleasant online shopping experience.  Their stated goal is to not have to provide actual human-based service, because their systems are so good.  Their belief is that their customers are web-savvy and prefer the self-service features.  Frankly, in my experience, this has been the case.  But, alas, my experience is not everyone’s experience, and because of that, many people have become irked with Amazon.

There is a feeling that perhaps Amazon is more willing to invest their resources in selling products than providing solutions to customer problems.  This is not a good reputation to have, regardless of your business or the customers you serve.  The best businesses take the time to find out how their customers want to communicate, and provide the wherewithal for each of those methods. 

So, before deciding how you want your customers to communicate, ask them how they want to communicate.  Don’t fret; chances are, they are not going to want to use smoke signals, Morse code, or semaphore.  Email and telephone are still the tools of the day, and maybe fax.  It doesn’t take a huge amount of resources to competently attend those stations, but doing so means you are doing unto your customers as they wish to be done unto.  And that is the first step to gaining customer loyalty.  Do unto that!

             --- Charles Dennis  ©2005 Knowledgence Associates

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