As part of the label By the book let us run through the pages of the Bible and see what insights we can derived from it to help us today.
I have worked for a leading telecoms company in the Philippines for about 9 years. All through out the period I was part of the company it has stressed a number of activities in order to make customers happy and make loyal patrons out of them.
After reading this part of the book of Luke - I am blessed with this understanding and relating this part of the best selling book of all time to excellent customer service.
Let us work bit by bit on the items starting with verse 4;
What man of you, having a hundred sheep, and having lost one of them, doth not leave the ninety and nine in the wilderness, and go after that which is lost, until he find it?
What the Bible has thought me in this segment is the fact that customer service should not just be about waiting for the customer or the client to come and visit you and tell you that something is wrong with the service they paid for. Often times even with my previous employer it proved to be true because the direction was to set-up a number of contact centers like offices for walk-in customers, hotlines for incoming calls and even emails and text hotlines to receive concerns and some queries over another platform. This may be productive but this is very reactive. Let me go back to verse 4 – the move was proactive when the shepherd noticed that one of his sheep is gone which means that this shepherd is keeping tabs of his sheep thus service providers must do the same. Some of you might be thinking of how impossible this can be done and how much cost would be invested in keeping that proactive customer handling going – let me just put it this way I would have to say also that marketing may pose good results but there is nothing better than retaining one client from the original pool as we can turn them into our willing slaves spreading the best service they got from us for taking that step to get in touch with them. Being sincere in asking them how are they doing and what our business has provided you over the span of time that they have used our service. Let me also stress that the quest for keeping customers in our own backyard must be a continuing process and not something we do for a season. That is the part which said “…go after that which is lost, until he finds it?” apart from the fact that prior to that statement another phrase preceded it and said something about going “..in the wilderness…” that my friends is about doing something not regular and probably something that has not been defined in your operations manual yet. This can be aligned with the Nordstrom Way of handling their business.
The Nordstrom Way does not handle their customer by a set of parameters and making their decision over such boxed in policy but rather they kept it simple that others find it complicated. Their philosophy is that for as long as it makes the customer happy and it does not taint the image of the business then they pursue it and go with it. They would not even penalized their associates if they give a replacement without much hassles to the customers. This may prove to be a challenge but it can be done – Nordstrom proved it.
Moving further in verse 5;
And when he hath found it, he layeth it on his shoulders, rejoicing.
This is something most business owners do not do. They do not party over a client they won back. Instead they spend so much on trying to woo other customers from the competition.
Let me jump over to verse 6;
And when he cometh home, he calleth together his friends and his neighbors, saying unto them, Rejoice with me, for I have found my sheep which was lost.
Please remember what I said about verse 5 and align this with it. After winning a client back or simply winning a client how many companies of today who actually throw a party for their shift or simply staying with them – likely “ZIP”. Why? Companies tend to invest in the wrong areas of customer service and sometimes greed gets in the way of sincere customer service – they would look at how much would they get back instead of having that investor mentality wherein they just invest on their clients in an obvious manner. Imagine the look of your clients face when they hear that you are throwing a party for them because they moved to your backyard. Imagine that!
If you were the type of person who did refer to their Bible while you are going through the lines on this blog then you might be asking why I stopped in verse 6 while the entire parable ends on the 7. Let me answer you this way – If you are a professional in a service oriented industry or might be an executive scouring the net for ways to make your customer service better – I am bably not your client or could be your client – I forgive you. There is still time. As Bo Sanchez said in one of his fellowship in Cebu – “everything in life is a choice….”
Make that choice today start with the simplest and most cost effective way to ensure that excellence is the only baseline for your customer service and then we can say that you are in for a profitable day, month or year ahead of you.
MPM
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