Leadership in Customer Service

Recently I wanted to buy a replacement car and went around a number of dealers looking for something suitable. My previous car was excellent but the service from the dealership was terrible and so I had decided to change to a different make of car.

I finally visited the Volvo dealership, Marshalls in my home town of Grantham. I met Andrew Green who was the senior sales consultant. To cut a long story, short, I not only bought one car but I decided to replace both my cars.

Whilst talking to Andrew as we were waiting for the car to be brought around, I asked him why he was able to give me such excellent service that other dealers did not? I asked what he thought was the secret of his excellent customer service? His answer was interesting. One of the reasons he could give excellent service was because he was empowered to make a decision and make it there and then. He told me that his boss and his organisation would back him up in any decision he made. He believed that the ability to respond to a customers questions, problems or issues immediately, was very important to giving the feeling of being valued and cared for.

He told me that most of his decisions were the right ones and the odd ones that maybe weren’t right, his company still supported him as long as he learnt from it.

This got me to think about the role of the leader in providing excellent customer service. I saw that what is delivered at the front line of an organisation is dependant on the processes, systems and leadership behind them. Andrew was free to give us his best because he was not afraid of the management, in fact he knew they would support him. He understood the systems and procedures and how to deliver them in a way that met the needs of the business and the customer. He was able to ‘own’ the whole experience.

I often find that bad customer experience is because the leadership or management of the organisation is poor and ineffective. People at the front line are unable to make a decision and the customer is left unhappy.

This happened recently with the car hire company I use. I am a gold card member of their organisation and so they know me and tell me they value my custom. However, I left my keys in the hire car as I flew out of the country a few months ago. When I landed at my destination I phoned them and actually got put through to the staff who received the cars. The lady confirmed she had found my keys and so I gave her my name and card number and asked her to keep them for me. She assured me that they would be waiting in the office in an envelope with my name on whenever I returned to the country.

I was so disappointed when nobody could find them on my return a couple of months later. Now here is the problem; nobody was in a position to make a decision, much less care. For four months I have been trying to get the situation resolved with this company.

When I contacted the manager, he took it upon himself to give me a free car hire thinking that this was the way of pacifying me. At NO stage did anyone ask me what I wanted! Not even the manager asked what I would like them to do to resolve my problem! He assumed that a free car hire was what I needed when in fact what I needed was cheaper and a lot more important to me. Nobody at the front line was allowed to make a decision and so they avoided me. In fact they left me standing in the middle of the shop un-attended for 20 minutes. At one stage in the email correspondence I was told that this was all my fault because I should have taken a name of the person I spoke to on the phone!

Here is an international company who are unable to give good customer service because the management have no idea how to support their front line staff or customers.

I had a mixture of feelings with my bank last week when after weeks of trying to get to speak to my consultant, leaving messages and not getting replies to urgent requests. I was told that my contact was on holiday, away on a training course, and that day “interviewing”. I finally spoke to the Regional Manager and he did the right thing. He asked me what I wanted? He focused on me and delivering results to me regardless of any issues.

However, my restored faith was sent crashing to the floor when he explained that my Consultant was in hospital!!! Somebody was lying to me! Two hours ago I was told my consultant was “interviewing” and now I was being told by the manager that the consultant was in hospital. My perception of the organisation was of a place where lies are told to cover up. I started to wonder what other lies they were telling me.

So my questions for this month are about your leadership in relation to your customer service.

• How is your customer service?
• How good are your front line staff allowed to be?
• How good a support are you to enable them to be the best?
• What is the culture you are driving into the front line staff?
• How good are the rest of your managers at supporting the front line staff?

I hope these questions get you to think about your role as leader and the impact and influence you have on customer service in your organisation.

You can down load this either as an audio file or a video file you will get to hear the interview with Andrew Green at the Volvo dealership, for more info on this contact me

Have a great month

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