The Simple Truth About Customer Service

Great forests have been toppled in order to supply the paper necessary to print all the books and articles that have been published on how to provide good customer service. What have we learned from all voluminous writings on providing good customer service?

If my experiences are any indicator, we haven't learned very much.

I traveled to Minneapolis on Sunday night because I was giving a seminar the next day to a group of young entrepreneurs. Unknown to me, a large convention was being held at the hotel on Wednesday which was going to cause the hotel to be completely full.

When I gave the front desk clerk my name, I expected the usual check-in formalities: name, address, credit card number, etc. Instead, the first question hurled at me was: "Mr Love, will you assure us that you will be leaving tomorrow?"

An affirmative response wasn't nearly enough for these customer service amateurs. The clerk then said, "Please sign here guaranteeing us that you will be leaving tomorrow."

What a welcome! Acres of trees sacrificed and nothing to show for their loss. Why is it that even with the all the books that have been written on providing good customer service (including all the thousands of articles that have been written on the Internet) that customer contact employees still behave like adolescents?

I think there are too many rules laid out by the experts and too many trees destroyed. There should be only three simple rules that businesses and their employees should always follow:

1. Treat every customer with respect at all times.

2. Never do or say anything that you wouldn't want said if you were the customer.

3. The customer is right even when he or she is wrong.

I have been buying investment real estate for many years and the bank I usually deal with was recently sold and is under completely new management. I recently applied for a mortgage loan on a new property and I tried to reach my new banker at the appointed time. When I called him, I was greeted by his secretary who told me to call back later. When I told her that he was expecting my call and asked her to inform him that I was on the line, she promptly suggested that I call another bank.

How many trees must be sacrificed to reach these kinds of ignorant people?

Now my payment goes to a new bank whose people appreciate my business each month. That's the thing about good customer service. We always go where we find it.