Who’s your Boss?

Ask this question to anybody who is working and they will give you a name.  Ask the small business owner and he will say “I am.”  Neither answer is correct. If you’re in business today or working in a business, your boss is your customer and they can fire you anytime they want to.

The old saying was, “A dissatisfied customer will tell 20 times more people than a satisfied one.” That’s no longer true.  Today with Facebook, Twitter, Yelp and other social media a dissatisfied customer can tell hundreds of people with a single click.

Yes, they can fire you with just one click.

We hear a lot about customer retention but it’s not customer retention that you have to worry about. It’s customer service.  If you don’t have outstanding customer service you won’t have customer retention.  Commitment to customer service has to start at the top and every employee has to be committed to it.  It has to be practiced every day by every employee.  An employee can’t just be told they have to give great customer service. They have be encouraged to go above and beyond what is expected.  It has to be the culture of the business.

Nordstrom consistently ranks in the top companies with the best customer service.  As a retailer, they have a lot of competition but a very loyal customer base.  Ask a customer why they buy at Nordstrom and the answer is almost always, “because of their service.”  The Nordstrom Employee Handbook is a single card with one rule.

Their one rule? “Use good judgment in all situations.” They encourage their employees to make the customer experience a memorable one from the very first day they start to work.

Henry Ford said, “You can’t build a reputation on what you’re going to do.”

You can’t just implement a customer service program; you and every employee have to live it every day.

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