Do you know who is owner of your company?
Customer is the boss
You cannot find better boss for your business than your own customers, they in effect own your business house and help to run it smoothly. Customers are major shareholders of your business who provide money for everything you own and they do it on regular basis. A good entrepreneur should always bear in his mind that customer is capable of taking his business to newer heights if he finds it satisfactory but at the same time he can turn to another business establishment, where he finds better services, better care and better treatment according to his ego. In some countries, customers are treated at par with bosses or kings of the whole business show or even considered god. Therefore, a customer deserves best of everything because he who is investing money, can invest according to his own sweet will. Your satisfied customer is like Golden Goose which lays Golden Eggs for you. You cannot kill him in one stroke to take all eggs out on one-time basis that is non-existing.
How to keep your customers happy
* There is no customer in the world that you can afford to make unhappy and still expect to remain with you. That would be wishful thinking. It is better to treat every customer on personal level to make him feel important. If you call him by name, with a wide grin on your face, perhaps you have added another customer to your ‘permanent list of customers’
* A customer visits your establishment with a firm fait in you, he does not want to see himself cheated, therefore it is your duty to keep his faith intact by providing what he expects from you in return of his money, if you are doing it successfully, you have another permanent customer for you. The golden rule to run a successful business is that customer should get his due share of profit for his loyalty. To make new customers you spend lot of money to attract him but your satisfied customers do it for you better than you can do. Mouth publicity is perhaps the best form of publicity.
* Do not forget that customer is ultimate boss and he will remain so even if you reach to the peak of business and you will be surprised to know that he does not like the fact that a business house he patronizes, forgets this fact. In case, you treat him lightly or not according to his liking, he will leave you. Therefore, to remain successful in business, never do those mistakes.
* You shall gain nothing if you will concentrate on favored and selected customers but every customer should have same importance for you. A customer should get proper attention as soon as he enters into your business place to feel himself important. He expects a timely solution and in case he must wait, he needs proper treatment during his waiting period.
***Important Note- If you find an annoying customer in your premises, you should try to understand his problem first. You should allow him three chances before sending him to your competitors; probably they can handle him better.
According to an old proverb a person who does not have a smiling face or if he is not cheerful, should never start a business. A customer looks at the face of a shopkeeper to judge his level of interest in himself and not to judge shopkeeper’s internal feelings. In other words, the seller should not only know the needs of his customer but must show them too to let customer know that they are getting proper attention. A good seller must never make big promises but should always try to fulfill his words even if he suffers loss in a particular deal while trying to keep his words that will make him gainer in the end.
Once your customers begin to have trust in you and your establishment, you will see that your business is growing rapidly. The art of customization is used to filter the customers to the extent where the technique will take a particular business to the ultimate heights. What a businessperson needs is all the sincere efforts to keep his customers interested, associated by listening to him carefully, respect him and his needs and give importance to his feedback even if it is in form of criticism. Let your customer know that you are there where you stand today because of your customers and be thankful to him for his patronage.
Customer is always right
The customer is always right is perhaps the ultimate truth ever since human learned about business and this includes the age when barter system was in place instead of today’s service for money system. However, the system is not in place in most companies in India today and you feel it more when you visit other countries where you can exchange faulty or even broken consumer items only by visiting to any company’s outlets without even showing a purchase bill or warranty card but your word is enough. That is because business houses believe their customer is right. Maybe some customers are taking advantage of the situation but the ultimate winners are still the companies who enjoy unlimited goodwill and respect of their customers. In case of our companies, they test their customers’ patience to the limit and still come up with disappointing results.
If you are good businessman, just keep yourself in place of your customers and think of your own reaction. Better still, select dummy customers to visit your organization to make a survey to get a feedback from them, you will be surprised to see the reports. What I am trying to put over is that no business house should take his customers for granted because that may ultimately lead to a situation where a businessman might see his customers parting ways. This is especially true, when the foreign investors are here in our country, waiting for the opportunity to grab your unsatisfied customers up with open arms and better facilities on offer.
What I am trying to prove is that customer is like flowing water that always remains on perfect level ground or flows from higher to lower levels. If you have proper ways to keep your customers associated by treating them respectfully and not trying to take them lying down, you can consider yourself standing on lower level where customer will find his comfort to remain with you. I am not afraid to express my views that customers should be treated as we treat our sons-in-law that perhaps would keep your customer’s ego fine.
There is another fact, your customer needs very little when he approaches you. Perhaps a simple smile and even if you are busy with another customer, a simple word telling him to allow him a minute will keep him waiting for few more minutes without feeling bad and that will help your cause of keeping such customers intact. Let me announce on this particular point that customers are like herd of sheep that follow each other without any problem unless an unsatisfied customer is there to drive them in any other direction. But there is other side of the coin that you cannot avoid problem makers and in such cases, you should know the art of getting rid of such customers before they create bigger problems for your business. You will always face a small percentage of such customers whom you would like to throw away without any hesitation. This is perfectly all right and part of your business. And please do not assume that I learned this lesson in my business institute but this is matter of personal experience. You get to learn such matters while in actual field of business and not in business schools so keep your eyes open. There are certain ways you can adapt to improve your business, see if you are missing any of these.
Close your eyes - Think as a customer
To think as a customer is not easy especially while you are running a big business establishment but that will help you no end up only if you could spare only fifteen minutes everyday thinking with your customer’s point of view. You will learn many things if you get a proper feedback from your consumers, the best way is to talk with them, ask them, look them at things with their eyes. Your sales department may not agree to that but your marketing department will tell you about the problems your organization need rectification. You should think as a customer support person instead of a businessman who is sitting there to milk customers.
Every good businessman knows that a business depends on its reputation, service and quality/durability of its products. Every step taken to improve these three increases your reputation gradually but surely. However, there is another fact that the improvement is in millimeters but when it comes to downward trend, it suddenly turns into centimeters. A good businessman knows that the better he treats his customers the better the outcome and certainly he needs no education at any business school to learn that. You must take very good care of ego of your customer by knowing his personal choice.
A good businessman never thinks in terms of immediate returns because this can decrease his returns in the long run. A Goodman thinks keeping long-term benefits in his mind which helps establish a business that keeps earning for him based at his business ethics as well the way customers feel satisfied. You never end thinking for the mutual benefit of your own self as well as your customers. You must consider that customer satisfaction is like a turbo charger for a business house which usually works miraculously.
Customer profit and overhead
Customer thinks before he finally decides to buy an item or a service and calculates every aspect very carefully, money and time being his primary concern. Therefore, every businessman should consider that time and money of his customer is important and see to it that his customers should get best return for his investment on both counts. A businessman should understand that he spends lot of money to develop new customers and keep them intact. Nevertheless, to keep them intact, a businessman needs to keep a strict vigil on his service and customer support sections.
A businessman taking care of smallest problems his customers face is probably spending a few minutes extra a day but the results are enormous. A satisfied customer is an added asset to any business house who brings more business for you. There is an old saying which most business places invariably used to display in their waiting areas read – “A satisfied customer brings 10 additional customers with him while an unhappy one takes 100 existing customers away” it still holds good and many still have faith in it.
There is no business that has no overhead expenses, some of the expenses are not worth and the ones, not worth, are no good for any business. No business house can afford to carry on with useless overheads. If you are not looking after your customers’ needs by providing him proper service and quality products, your expenses on other methods of bringing customers are only adding up unsatisfied customers to increase your unfruitful overheads, which in turn will prove fatal for your business. There is no survival for a business with worthless overheads and you do not need to be a master of business management to understand about this simple point. Stop all expenses and activities which are of no help for your customers, these bring no results for you.
A point that could help - I have seen some business houses where they still keep an old-fashioned customer support section with separate way to enter not having much advanced facilities or modern day Hi Fi technologies attended by ordinary looking people, especially appointed to provide support to customers who feel shy to enter in modern offices or showrooms. Such customers feel more at home in wayside shops and workplaces where they express themselves in much better way. Important point to note is that wise businessmen do not consider it as an overhead that will cause holes in their pockets.
Business is not bed of roses
Most people who do not understand basics of business but merely see people doing well in business, running and earning big business houses, rolling in moneys, think there is nothing better than entering into business. They probably learn it the harder way that to pluck roses one has to cope with the thorns associated with roses. A successful businessman needs to meet with challenges coming from complicated customers. A complicated customer is like a black cloud over the ripened harvest ready to pick which needs no rain. Likewise, a complicated customer is the last person a businessman needs in his premises. If you have learned to tame such a customer, you can consider yourself a successful businessman. The best way to tackle a complicated customer is to detect the problem and rectify it. If you can do it successfully and send the customer home smiling, you have won the battle.
Most of your customers are normal human being who can see the reason. You can bring them to terms but you shall have to solve their problems. You do not have to be psychiatrist to study your customers’ behavior pattern but only knowing the normal human tendency is sufficient. You can classify your customers in following categories-
A- Happy go lucky- These customers are the easiest to satisfy and you can provide them services most pleasurably. You will never hesitate to go out of the way to keep them happy. But you must be careful with such type of customers, they expect a just and proper service from you. If you fail them at any point, they will stop taking your services and will tell others to not to deal with you. You can always use these customers as your brand ambassadors.
B- Know it all Type- Customers with know all tendency will prove very helpful for your business because they will let you know the finer points maybe some of them were not in your knowledge. You should provide him with a pad or piece of paper to make his suggestions. He will do it gladly to show his knowledge and will serve your purpose. You can use many of his points which may help beneficial in future. You can satisfy him easily with providing him some small freebies but charge reasonably for services provided. However, you can rest assured that customer in this category are good for your business but never treat such people shabbily because people like these can get annoyed easily.
C- Proudly and always in a haste- Customers in this category are always in a hurry but pay you well for your services, therefore you must tackle them in their own way. You should never mind their rude ways because customer is always right. Talk to them in short and to the point and keep your conversation to business matters.
D- Worried or angry typed- You should make sure that while handling worried typed people you shall have to look as worried. He would love to someone as worried as himself and sharing his worries. He could be ‘posing’ to show him worried too, trying to get extra discounts for your services. You can try his trick with him by telling him how lucky he was to be with you to save him from bigger losses, jut in time. Charge him reasonably to keep him in list of your regular customers.
E- Problematic type- You should treat them on their merit. You can afford to loose such customers if they do not behave properly because customers like these are hard to please. They create all round problems to make your workers hopeless. Such customers are hard to please therefore best belong to your competitors.
F- Angry, shy, jumpy or afraid type- Such customers are never sure of their problems. They do not know the basics of problem whether it was in the product or his carelessness created it. In such cases, the efforts should from your side to help them understand problems and rectify them. Let him talk but never discourage him, once he gets his problem solved, he will be encourages. Such customers are hard to stick therefore need very specific handling.
Unsatisfied customers teach you best
No businessman can keep all his customers happy forever, if you can do that either you are a genius or you are in monopoly business with no competition as our auto industry used to be before Maruti came to scene or private players came to telephone sector. What I feel that if you can keep about 40% of your customers in list of ‘fully satisfied’ another 30-40 in ‘okay’ and rest of them in ‘not fully satisfied’ you are doing fine. Even if you have 10% of your customers ‘not at all satisfied’, you are still okay but you should work on the situation. You should try to look deep into the problem and meet your unsatisfied customers to sort out their problem. You shall have to change strategies to keep matters under your control by-
1- Discontinuing products or services which are giving you constant problems
2- Never sell a product that may generate good profit for you but is not satisfactory or up to the expectation of your customers
3- You should avoid selling products with no service facilities available with you
4- You should avoid keeping negative customers because negativity is bad, it is bad whether it is in you or in your customers
5- Avoid selling products with sub standard quality, also if you know that a customer’s need is not the product which he is looking for unknowingly. That will maybe deprive you of one sale but will increase a permanent customer for you.
6- Last but not least, listen to your unsatisfied customers as much as you can because that is the best way to keep yourself upgraded with products and problems. You only have to take precaution to allow together all your unsatisfied customers at a single place and time.
Conclusion
People who come to register complaints or want themselves to be listened, feel sorry, rectify their problems expect to settle issues at the earliest. If problems are taken on priority basis, customers feel far better or feel nothing bad but that is not the case with Indian companies. They keep prolonging the issue to avoid providing service or not at all providing service in some cases. Sometimes the complaints are not genuine but you should treat every customer on the merit of issues. Even if you reach to the conclusion that the case does not come under guarantee or warranty, you should handle your customer tactfully because your aim is not to win a legal battle but keep your customer intact. I would like to mention that ‘There are too few customers who are wrong but in most cases the companies are not coming good to customer’s expectations'.
Photo Source- wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_Goose
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