Recently I called a local business, who we had hired to do an event for us on a weekend, to speak to the supervisor with whom all of the arrangements had been made to let her know how things went.
Overall, 90% of their services were excellent, even up and beyond. But…..it was the 10% of bad service by a couple of their staff that could hurt future referrals for their business from us and those who attended the event and I felt they deserved to be told.
Out of over a dozen staff that were serving at this event there were two that gave poor service to the guests that attended. They made complaints about the work they had to do to pull off the event to guests that were attending and they said rude things to them when the guests wanted services from them. These two staff members also wasted a lot of the refreshments by pouring into glasses where no one was sitting and refilling glasses of guests that did not ask for more. These actions added to the bottom line of what we, their clients, had to pay, and it was noticed not only by us, but by those that attended the event, as they made comments to us about it.
As I nicely explained these issues we encountered with their employees I told the supervisor as a business owner myself, I would want a client to tell me if one of our employees gave less than the best customer service to any of our customers so that I could do something to rectify the dissatisfaction and save our reputation with our client. The supervisor was in total agreement with me and insisted on giving us a discount on the wasted food and drink, this was appreciated, but it was not the reason for my call.
My real reason was to inform them of what happened so that they could make sure that it did not happen again, and who knows how much business they have lost already by customers who have been unhappy, but did not let them know.
It is said, that one unhappy customer will go out and tell 10 other people about the bad service they received in a place of business, but a satisfied customer usually only tells 3 people of the excellent services they have received. Strange, but true, bad service speaks louder than good service.
In our place of business we are always telling our clients to let us know if there are any problems or misunderstanding as we want to give the best service possible to them, but many times we don’t know if something is less that satisfying from our clients point of view unless they tell us. More often than not a dissatisfied client will just not come back and you never will know why, but be sure of this, they have told others why.
Keeping your staff’s customer service skills and training in tip-top-condition takes effort on a business owner’s part, but if you do not you are opening the doors for poor service opportunity to happen, which can be very costly to you the business owner. Keep your ear open and make sure you invite your clients to give you straight forward honest feedback on your service with them. You can give better service to your clients if you do.
08/05/14
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