Retail Observer

RETAILOBSERVER.COM JUNE 2023 64 W hen dealing with a service customer, the most critical advertising vehicle you have is the service technician who visits your customers every day. You've probably seen many surveys where lots of questions dealt with the impression the customer had of the personnel they dealt with during their purchasing or service experience. The CSC process spends a great deal of time evaluating the customer service expertise of your Service Managers and Customer Service people through both training and certification. When it comes to your technician's customer service expertise, we assume that in addition to the ongoing technical training your company provides, you also emphasize the importance of customer relations to your technicians and everyone else who comes in contact with your customers. We all expect our field service technicians to deliver a positive service experience on every service call. You can help make sure it will happen by providing them with ongoing customer service training and customer feedback on their performance. Also, set management expectations during their ongoing training on how they should deal with customers on every service call. Look for customer feedback on this important aspect of every customer contact and make sure that the technicians get specific feedback on how the customer actually viewed their overall performance. We've all heard stories about what can happen on a bad service call. The best technical service repair can be overshadowed by the way a technician treats a customer, their property, and their concerns. Recently, a technician came to my house to repair a refrigerator that others from the same service company where we purchased the product weren't able to complete the repair on two previous visits, even after discussions with the manufacturer. He came to my house and looked at the refrigerator, took some readings, and said that the refrigerator was still covered under warranty and the only fix was to have the manufacturer send us a new freezer door. That was impressive, because he was right and his recommended fix worked. His technical expertise on the product was excellent. The problem was that during the service call his overall customer relations skills were terrible and he blamed the previous technicians from the same company for not knowing how to fix the problem previously. Some simple guidelines would have helped this technician get a lot more positive customer reviews on every service call: • Answer all customer questions. • Treat the customer, their property, and confidential information with care and respect. • Be courteous at all times. • Explain what you did to solve their problem. • Don't pass the blame on to your company, your associates, or the manufacturer. • Explain any follow-up that might be necessary. • Explain any relevant warranty on the repair. • Resolve any customer concerns and escalate unresolved issues to management, if necessary. • Simply thank the customer for their business. Make great service experiences perform as a positive advertisement for your company's concern to provide top-quality technical expertise and excellent customer relations. We should all remember that our sales and customer service personnel contact our customers every day. In addition, remember how many customer contacts are made every day by our technical service personnel. This is one of the best opportunities you have to build customer trust and loyalty for your company and the products that you sell. Skilled service can make your company stand out among your competitors. Match it with the missing link of excellent customer service at all levels of your company, and you'll guarantee a very satisfied customer on every call. All it takes is some added training, ongoing emphasis, and continued monitoring to make sure your technicians will remain your strongest marketing tool. S E R V I C E D E P A R T M E N T Don Pierson, Certified Service Center (CSC) www.certifiedservicecenter.org THE MISSING LINK? RO

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