Investor's Business Daily, August 2nd, 2007
At RealPeopleRatings.com, firms can find out what customers are thinking. Each quarter on the site, Corporate Research International asks 3,000 trained mystery shoppers to rank leading businesses' customer service on a scale of 1 to 10.
According to Brad Holdgreve, vice president of sales for CRI, companies ranked toward the bottom should see red flags. "I think it's a way for them to know they need to do something," he told IBD. "Customer service is critical. It doesn't matter how big your business is or how well known."
In the most recent survey, Ace Hardware ranks best in class in the home improvement category, beating out Home Depot HD and Menards.
Joe Calloway, author of "Work Like You're Showing Off," isn't surprised. "Ace Hardware understands that to compete against these big boxes, you have to beat them on the buying experience," he told IBD. "Ace Hardware is doing a lot of things right."
The numbers tell the story, Calloway says. "If you want to know how a company is doing today, look at their sales numbers. If you want to know how a company will be doing in six months, look at their customer satisfaction."
Leaders keep measuring and improving customer service. Insights:
Dig deep. If you do your own customer service survey, you might have to push for answers you can use. "You may have to almost force your customers to tell you what you're not doing right," Calloway said. "They'll tell their friends if they're not happy, but they won't tell you."
Calloway suggests asking your customers to complain about you. Another approach is to have customers finish this sentence: "If there's one thing we could do better, it would be ..."
Enlist an expert. One measurement mistake is asking too often. "I've heard some rumblings from consumers about being inundated with the after-the-sale surveys," Calloway said. "It's very easy to overdo the survey thing."
An expert can help you strike a balance. "A lot of times you might need to bring some people in from the outside, because there's a real science to it," Calloway said.
Check the basics. Calloway cited a European gas-station chain that wanted to improve its bottom line. The management team brainstormed revenue-producing products and services it could add.
"The vice president of sales said, 'Stop. Let's go see what our customers expect from us,'" Calloway said. Turns out customers wanted easy ways to pay, clean bathrooms and good service.
The company worked on those requests and "their revenue increased tremendously," Calloway said.
Those basics rank high among shoppers, according to Holdgreve. "It's usually cleanliness and timeliness," he said. "Bathroom cleanliness is a big one."
Keep your word. "Never, ever, ever overpromise," Calloway said. A hotel he stayed at placed signs everywhere reading: "Better than our competition." Calloway was flummoxed. "They not only weren't better -- they had stupidly called attention to their failings," he said.
