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Are you Ready for Your Customers?

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Even though every business requires at least one customer in order to operate, many businesses forget that they need to be ready to do business with those very same customers, sometimes at a moments notice. Unfortunately for customers, there are a number of businesses that have not discovered the need to be ready for them. What businesses need to do is learn from the good practices of some and the bad practices of others. Customers are attracted to businesses that emphasize serving the customer first. Any savvy business operator knows that this competitive advantage can easily be translated into more sales and higher profits. Here then are some examples of businesses that I have come across which have either mastered the idea of ensuring that they are customer ready, or haven’t given the idea much thought at all. 

One of the major indicators of just how customer ready your business is revolves around how quickly your employees handle phone calls, emails, faxes and walk in enquiries. Some businesses have an in house quality control standard that requires any call to be answered within two rings. Those businesses that do not have standards around answering phone calls usually implement a standard around returning voice mail within a certain period of time. While this is an excellent practice, too often the customer will find that their messages or calls are either never returned or the timeliness of the response lacked urgency. Businesses need to remember that any outside contact is either from potential new customers or existing customers requiring service. Unfortunately, some businesses do not seem to see the need to emphasize this point to their employees. Businesses that are ready for their customers place a priority on serving customers first and taking care of other tasks later. 

In order to give you a feel for how being customer ready works, here are some examples of businesses that have either adopted or ignored this critical issue, all of which are based on actual experiences I have noted. 

Upon entering a business you walk up to the counter for service, but no one seems to be there. It seems all the staff have disappeared or gone home. In reality they are actually on a break, in the back looking for something, talking to friends on the phone or email, called in sick, didn’t show up, or servicing another customer at the loading dock. In this case the customer waited a few minutes and then took their business elsewhere. Businesses need to ensure they are always aware of customers arriving. You need to either have a rule that states there must be one person at the front at all times or at the minimum have a camera installed so employees can see when a customer comes in. This example can occur at any size business, even a large retail operation. 

Unfortunately the extreme case of the missing employee is when you arrive at a business only to find a handwritten note on the door saying they will be back in 5 minutes. While this may have been accepted during the heydays of Barkerville, closing down the business in order to go to the bank, get a coffee, or do personal errands is a sure way of directing those valued customers to your competitor. 

Of course this isn’t much different than showing up at business or calling a business right at their posted opening or closing time to find they are closed or not answering the phone. Businesses need to ensure they are ready to serve customers who operate on a different schedule than they do. Be prepared to have a margin of error in your operating schedule. Customers showing up at those times are doing so to spend money at your establishment, not to just look around.
 
It is also not unusual for employees who have been assigned to other jobs, such as cleaning up tables or processing paper work, to come and help out at the counter when customer line-ups get too big. There is nothing more frustrating for a customer then to have the opportunity to watch an employee clean tables or do paper work while you stand at the counter waiting to be served. Employees need to educated that customer are the first priority in almost every case, emergencies excepted. Paper work can always be done after the business is closed for the day.

One of the other major differences between business that are customer ready and those that are not is when a situation arises where a large number of customers arrive at once. A recent example saw an employee of a nearly empty restaurant suggest to a large group of customers that they should have called ahead. Contrast this to the store that quickly reallocated all their staff, including managers, back office and shipping to handle an influx of customers. Not only did all staff quickly mobilize to serve the customers, it was also done in a very efficient manner, much to the delight of the customers. This business had undoubtedly realized the value of being ready for the customer.

As a business operator you need to always remember the old saying, a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush. A customer in front of you is more valuable than all the potential ones who might call or stop by; they have already decided to do business with you.

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