Customer Service vs. Customer Satisfaction
Over this past week I’ve given much thought in regards to the lack of customer service and satisfaction people receive these days. You might be thinking to yourself, “You needed a whole week to think about this?” Well, yes. My frustrations were clouding my ability to think objectively. As the customer, more times than not, I have endured an undesirable experience. Perhaps you too, have fallen victim to such poor treatment. Here are some specific examples in three industries I’d like to share with you.
The first example is a retail store. We shop retail stores everyday and have accepted such poor treatment as normal. Have you ever gone shopping and when it was time to pay the cashier did not greet you? Or worse, didn’t even tell you what the total of your purchase was, never mind being thanked for shopping with them? I’m sure you return to that store out of necessity and not desire.
The next example is from an eat-in restaurant. Too many times I’ll take my family out to eat and wish we just stayed home. Either the service itself was lacking or the food wasn’t worth the money. How about when you go to a restaurant and after your server finally comes to greet you and take your drink order, they return five minutes later to “make sure” you wanted diet-cola? You politely say “yes, with lemon.” After another five minutes pass, your server arrives with your drinks–without your lemons. Sadly, you’re still expected to leave an 18% tip and sometimes they automatically take it!
Lastly, here is a common practice that our ’secure’ financial institutes practice on thousands every day. You rush to open an account with a bank because you will receive a much needed kitchen counter-top appliance. You think, “Wow! What great service! I get a checking account and a $30 blender for free!” So you happily join confident your new bank is better than your previous bank. Soon you notice your new bank allows a charge to go through and the money is instantly unavailable. But when an error occurs in your favor, it takes the bank days even weeks to make your money available to you? Once everything is said and done, you could have bought yourself seven blenders in bank fees and frustration.
Perhaps there is a correlation between the size of the company and the pay the employees receive. Do you get better service from a larger chain-like company versus localized mom & pop shops? Even though both companies may be well known corporations, it doesn’t mean you receive the same level of service. An employees attitude towards their job is a direct reflection of how they treat the customer.
We all live in a service related world. Yet, that is the very thing we don’t receive. Why don’t consumers hold all companies equally accountable? After all, we are spending hard earned money in their company? Customer service is more effectively said as customer satisfaction or customer respect. Why shouldn’t all customers receive respect? After all, if it weren’t for the customer you wouldn’t have a job. As the customer, how satisfied are you? DK Productions Entertainment chooses to be accountable to every one of our clients. The level of excellence our customers have come to expect from us, is still less than that we expect from ourselves. Perhaps there is a direct corolation between company size and customer satisfaction. This definately should NOT be the case! Great customer satisfaction is in the fine print and not in the flashy gimicks some use to rope you in. The sooner customers, empolyers and employees realize the only way to increase customer satisfaction is to increase the standard levels. How? Respect. Respect for oneself, respect for eachother and respect for a job well done.
Dave Krevalin
DK Productions Entertainment
www.dkproductionsentertainment.com
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Tags: client accountability, customer satisfaction, customer service, respect