How To Provide Great Customer Service: The Cutting Edge Japan Business Show

How To Provide Great Customer Service: (Audio here:https://bit.ly/4c7Fm9n) (Video here:https://bit.ly/4ceg6yj) The Cutting Edge Japan Business Show

Great service is so fleeting and ?illusive. You encounter it and then like the morning mist, the next minute it is gone.? One company representative is so spectacularly helpful and then next one is seemingly possessed by evil spirits and demonic. As companies how do we get the angels inside our staff to engage with the clients, rather than having reputation destroying devils intrude.? Good service, consistently delivered, is no accident and so it has to be made to occur.? How can we do that?

Jan Carlzon many years ago published a tremendous guide to customer service.? He had the job of turning around SAS airlines and captured that experience in his book “Moments Of Truth”.? Carlson’s insights flooded back to me when I checked into a hotel in Singapore.?

By the way, the drive in from Changi Airport is a credit to the Singaporean Government, who spend millions every year to develop and maintain their landscaped, leafy, green, tropical thoroughfares.? This is smart.? You are already in a pleasant mood just getting into town.? While going through the check-in process at the hotel, a waiter from the adjoining restaurant approached me bearing an ice-cold glass of freshly squeezed juice.? Singapore is very humid and trust me, after a long flight, that ice cold beverage went down very well.? I thought this is really well thought through customer service by this Hotel.

One of Carlzon’s observations about customer service however was the importance of consistency of delivery.? For example, visualise the telephone receptionist answering your call in a pleasant, helpful manner and you are uplifted by your exposure to the brand.? The next staff member receiving the transferred call however, is grumpy, disinterested and unfriendly. Instantly,? your mood and positive impression plummet. You are suddenly irritated by this company, who have just damaged their brand by their lack of an ability to sustain good service across only two consecutive touch points with the customer.? How do you feel when you are given the run around from department to department?

So back to my story.? As I get to my room, in good spirits after unexpectedly receiving my ice-cold juice, I find out the television isn’t working.? After a forensic search for the cause, including a few harsh words with the television controller, I discover the power is not on.? There is a card slot next to the door that initiates the power supply to the room.? Actually, I discovered the same system in the elevator, when I unsuccessfully tried to select my floor.? Yes, I worked it all out eventually, but the thought occurred to me that the pleasant, busy young woman checking me into the hotel, failed to mention these two salient facts to me.? Sustainability of good service has to be the goal if you want to protect or grow your brand.

Let me mention a customer service breakdown I particularly dislike here in Japan.? When you call just about any organization here, you get a very flat voice answering the phone saying in Japanese ,“XYZ company here”.? You ask to speak with that very excellent and impressive member of staff, Ms. Suzuki whom you met recently. The flat uninterested voice tells you that she “is not at her desk right now” and then you are abandoned to stone cold motherless silence.?

The “may I take down your name and phone number so that she can call you back” bit is rarely offered.?? Instead, you are left hanging on the phone. The inference of the silence is that if Ms. Suzuki is not around, that is your problem buddy and you should call back later, rather than expect a return call.? Again, to Carlzon’s point, these inconsistencies of customer service directly damage the brand.? In this example, when I had previously met Ms. Suzuki, I was impressed by her and consequently I had a good impression of the whole organisation.? I was projecting that positive vibe to the entire company. The person taking the call has just put that positive image of the brand to the sword.

When you are the leader of your company, you presume that everyone “gets it” about representing the brand and that the whole team delivers consistent levels of service.? You expect that your whole team is supporting the marketing department’s efforts to create an excellent image of the organization.? After all, you have been spending truckloads of money on that marketing effort, haven’t? you?

But are all the staff supporting the effort to build the brand?? Perhaps they have forgotten what you have said about consistent customer service in the past or they are a new hire or a part-timer who didn’t get properly briefed.?

I heard one of my recent hires in the sales team answering the phone with an unhelpful tone in his voice.? He actually sounded like he was angry.? He was in his fifties, so no boy, but obviously that had been his standard, ugly phone manner throughout his entire working life.? A perpetual brand killer, client alienating, reputation destroyer right there.? We have an open plan office, so I could hear this. If you are encased in the dark wood paneled corner executive crib with a tremendous view, then maybe you will never know what is going on in the engine room and therefore be unable to do anything about it.

Leaders, we should all sit down and draw the spider’s web of how customers interact with us and who they interact with.? We should expect that nobody on our team gets it about the preservation of the brand and determine that we have to tell them all again, again and again.?

So how about this for a starter for educating our staff to do a better job protecting and enhancing the brand:

1. Answer the phone with a pleasant, happy voice. Be helpful and offer your name first, so the customer won’t be embarrassed that they didn’t recognise your voice.? It also gives the caller confidence that a real person is going to take care of their needs.
2. If you take the call and the person they are calling isn’t there, proactively offer to ensure they get a call back as soon as possible and guarantee you will get their message through to them.
3. End with thanking them for their call and again leave your name, in case there is anything further the caller may need.

First impressions count, but so do all the follow-up impressions, if we want to build a sustainable, consistent positive image with our customers.? Consistency of good experiences doesn’t happen automatically.? We have to look again at all of our touch points with our customers and ensure that everyone in the team understands their place in maintaining the excellent brand we have built up.

Action Steps

Draw your spiders web of client touch points and identify who needs training, including non-regular staff.

Design the experience you want the client to have and train everyone around the content.

Look at your systems for moving or transitioning the client through the organization, to make sure the client experience is consistently good.

Always check to see what you think is happening is actually the case.

Do you need to sell more?? Is your sales manager stressing you about making your monthly sales quota? Do it yourself trial and error wastes time and resources. There is a perfect solution for you- to LEARN MORE click here (https://bit.ly/43kQpsN )

To get your free guide “How To Stop Wasting Money On Training” click here ( https://bit.ly/4agbvLj )

To get your free “Goal Setting Blueprint 2.0” click here (https://bit.ly/43o5FVK)

If you enjoy our content then head over to www.dale-carnegie.co.jp and check out our Japanese and English seminars, workshops, course information and schedules and our whitepapers, guidebooks, training videos, podcasts, blogs.

About The Author

Dr. Greg Story, President Dale Carnegie Tokyo Training

[email protected]

Bestselling author of “Japan Sales Mastery” (the Japanese translation is "The Eigyo" (The営業), “Japan Business Mastery” and "Japan Presentations Mastery".? He has also written "How To Stop Wasting Money On Training" and the translation "Toreningu De Okane Wo Muda Ni Suru No Wa Yamemashoo" (トレーニングでお金を無駄にするのは止めましょう) and his brand new book is “Japan Leadership Mastery”.

Dr. Greg Story is an international keynote speaker, an executive coach, and a thought leader in the four critical areas for business people: leadership, communication, sales and presentations.?He leads the Dale Carnegie Franchise in Tokyo which traces its roots straight back to the very establishment of Dale Carnegie in Japan in 1963 by Mr. Frank Mochizuki.

He publishes daily blogs on LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter

Has 6 weekly podcasts:

1.?????Mondays -??The Leadership Japan Series,

2.????Tuesdays – The Presentations Japan Series

Every second Tuesday - ビジネス達人の教え

3.????Wednesdays - The Sales Japan Series

4.????Thursdays – The Leadership Japan Series

Also every second Thursday - ビジネスプロポッドキャスト

5.????Fridays - The Japan Business Mastery Show

6.????Saturdays – Japan’s Top Business Interviews

Has 3 weekly TV shows on YouTube:

1.?????Mondays - The Cutting Edge Japan Business Show

Also every Second Thursday - ビジネスプロTV

2.????Fridays – Japan Business Mastery

3.????Saturdays – Japan Top Business Interviews

In the course of his career Dr. Greg Story has moved from the academic world, to consulting, investments, trade representation, international diplomacy, retail banking and people development.

Growing up in Brisbane, Australia he never imagined he would have a Ph.D. in Japanese decision-making, become a 39 year veteran of Japan and run his own company in Tokyo.

Since 1971, he has been a disciple of traditional Shitoryu Karate (糸東流) and is currently a 6th Dan.

Bunbu Ryodo (文武両道-both pen & sword) is his mantra and he applies martial art philosophies and strategies to business.

?

?