A recent visit to a restaurant proved to me that if the front or back of your business is not in order and working then you can not deliver Customer Service to your customers and your business will quickly fall apart.

There are two important factors in the successful delivery of customer service.

1. A Customer Service Plan

To Delivering excellent, quality customer services you must have a plan that is successfully executed with precision over and over again.

Having no plan is the biggest failure in the delivery of customer service. You must give thought to what your customer wants and needs as well as how to deliver customer service, when to deliver it.

Also, very importantly, your team need to know why delivering customer service is vital to your business and your customers.

Successful businesses have a thought out plan that is put into action every day not just now and then.

I recently visited a restaurant that had no plan and definitely no back up plan. They were under staffed, had booked a large table for an event, filled the restaurant and of course were unable to cater for the large volume of people. I’m sure the restaurant owner was very excited at the prospect of having a restaurant oozing with customers, especially after a long year of business loss, but what is the point if you cannot deliver customer service to your customers, let alone their food!

All that happens was a large group of dissatisfied customers who complained, may have left a bad review and never return after telling many of their friends.

Do you have enough people to provide your customers with the service they expect and should be getting?

2. Enough people to deliver customer service

Another important factor in the delivery of customer service is to ensure you have enough people to deliver it, and they are fully trained and rehearsed in delivering customer service and how to handle any hiccups along the way.

When a customer is dissatisfied, whether you did something wrong or not, how you respond to the customer makes all the difference. If you have a dissatisfied customer you need to listen, understand and agree no matter what, then offer a solution or offer to find a solution and never to lay blame or say it is not your fault.

So remember to listen, understand, agree and offer a solution. This is a great way to diffuse a tense situation and turn things around.
Now back to the problem of not having enough people to deliver customer service.

How can your team ever give your customers what they need if they are flat out and too busy to deliver any form of customer service and make your customers feel special and important.

It’s just not going to happen.

But two things will happen, you will lose customers and your team will burn out and leave you. I have seen this happen in plenty of dental practices and other businesses. Your team will lose their enthusiasm and feel they can never achieve what you want. All because there were not enough team members to do the job correctly.
Are your team sufficiently trained and prepared to deliver customer service?
If you sign up to work in the front line of customer service this is what you must be trained and prepared for at all times.

Interestingly enough, failure to deliver Customer Service can be an opportunity to offer customer service. It is called Customer Service Recovery and it is very powerful stuff. Not that I am saying to go and purposely NOT deliver Customer Service, but be ready and jump into action when you don’t!

When I personally experience bad Customer Service, it is very often, because the team have not been educated in the needs of their customers, and so they fail terribly when it comes to delivering customer service.

You know Customer Service is what makes the biggest difference in all businesses so why not make 2023 the year of delivering Customer Service. Look at where you are failing to deliver Customer Service to your patients and make some changes.

Have a plan and make sure you have enough highly trained people on deck to deliver your Customer Service.