Customer service and courtesy always go hand in hand. Customer service is not customer service if it is not courteous. Courtesy is usually defined as politeness originating from kindness and exercised habitually. This is what actually encompasses quality customer service. Basing from this you can actually say that the measure of good costumer service is courtesy towards customers.
The Importance of Courteous Customer Service
So how do you practise courteous customer service? First, determine the needs of your customers. By needs, we refer not only to the needs that they will pay you for but to any need that will provide them convenience while under your care. Just take for example when you are going to a hotel.
When you rent a hotel room, you primarily pay for the room, water and electricity or even food. However, the best hotels in the world are not renowned only for their rooms but for the very service that they provide. You certainly do not pay for the security guard to open the door for you but you consider it quality service when he does.
This implies that courteous customer service entails going beyond the job description or the need. Customers do not pay for politeness; they pay for their room and its facilities. However, if the establishment's personnel have been polite and courteous, it is fairly certain that customers would go back and avail of the service from the said establishment again. For customers, satisfying customer service is a bonus that they get from an establishment. For the business, courtesy to customers is a crucial selling factor.
Courteous Customer Service Defined
Courteous customer service personnel are willing to help. As stated above, practicing good customer service means identifying the needs of your customers and venturing even beyond your customers' needs. Once you have identified the need, address it right away without any further command or instructions. If you see a guest carrying too many bags, offer your help to carry the bags for her. That's what differentiates exceptional businesses from mediocre ones. Five star hotels did not earn their place by merely providing their guests a place to stay. They are visited by customers because they are willing to perform a service that is beyond the formal scope of their business.
Discrimination does not have a place in courteous customer service. Courteous customer service knows no race, color or religion. A good customer service representative is blind to these differences in as much as he does not let these differences color his perceptions. However, a good customer service person is not blind to differences that affect how people would like to be served. In fact, he recognizes the needs of different people and provides it to them accordingly.
A courteous customer service agent is always on time. Being late is tantamount to being rude. Just think of yourself ordering a pizza only to find out that your order is an hour late. Think of the frustration that you will experience just because your pizza delivery is late. In some businesses, lost of time is lost money.
You may think that bringing the quality of your customer service up to this level will only mean added costs and may even result to more expensive products. It is a yes to both. Initiating changes for better quality service to your customers will involve expensive training of your frontline people. Now if you can't afford to pay for these through existing operational capital, then you'll have no choice but to increase your prices accordingly.
However, it is wrong to think that both of these are detrimental to your business. First of all, the training cost will pay for itself when word spreads about your exemplary service. As for price, look around. Any study will tell you that it is not only price that makes a person decide where to eat, where to shop and whose business to patronize. If you have a product that's well worth the price and good, courteous customer service that make people want to come back, then you will definitely come out ahead.
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