Service with a smile fuels business success
Sun Journal (New Bern, North Carolina)
By Lucie Willsie
Margaret Bealor received a bonus as she left the Chelsea after
eating lunch recently: a hug from Meri Nagaishi, one of the head
waitresses at the downtown New Bern restaurant.
Bealor said she and her friends had been dining at the Chelsea
for most of the 15 years it's been open.
"It's great," Bealor said. "Nice people, good food."
Bealor is just one of the many customers that Nagaishi has met
while working at the Chelsea for the past 12 years.
"Now we're great friends," Nagaishi said.
It's that kind of customer service that may just be the key to
a successful business.
"When people are satisfied with goods and services, they tend
to purchase more," said Professor Claes Fornell, head of the American
Customer Satisfaction Index, which measures how satisfied consumers
are.
In an unscientific Internet poll, the Sun Journal found that
78 percent said customer service played a "very important" role
in their decision to frequent a business. Just 6 percent of the
283 respondents put price and quality above customer service.
Chris Hoveland, co-owner at the Chelsea, said customer service
training has increased by around 30 percent since the restaurant
opened. And, it apparently is paying off. The restaurant was selected
as the winner of the Sun Journal Readers' Choice Award for best
wait staff.
Nationally, customer satisfaction had decreased by .8 percent
in the past 10 years, a decline the American Society for Quality
considers significant. It reports the lowest levels of satisfaction
in service industries such as airlines, restaurants and cell phone
businesses.
One of Walter Howell's biggest complaints is automated phones.
He said he has to call several times before he can get through
to a person at some businesses.
"I get aggravated and quit," he said.
He's not alone in his complaint.
"There needs to be a human being on the other end of the line,"
said shopper Elizabeth Green. "Who wants to talk to a recording?"
The personal touch may just go a long way. Angelia Wallace, a
mother of two youngsters, said the friendly greeters at the New
Bern Wal-Mart keep her going back. And, her children enjoy the
stickers they receive.
"It makes you feel welcome," she said of the greeters that often
call her by name.
Still, the personal touch will go only so far. Wallace said she
hasn't been satisfied with workers at places such as utility companies.
"You're a number, not a person," Wallace said. "It makes a big
difference."
Some find workers at big retail stores or fast-food restaurants
impersonal.
"They don't care," said Leslie Belfance "Small businesses are
better."
It's the personal touch that Belfance stresses to her workers
as the assistant manager for Waldenbooks in Twin Rivers Mall.
She said she instructs clerks to greet a customer by asking them
if they can help, know their inventory well enough to take them
to the item, put it in their hands and ask if they can help with
something else.
"It's a standard all across the country," Belfance said, noting
a 50 percent increase in customer service training at the store.
One way businesses can train their workers is through the 20-year-old
Mystery Shopping Providers Association, which sends paid shoppers
into stores to test for things like customer service.
According to MSPA, companies conducting mystery-shopper programs
grew an average of 11.1 percent from 2003 to 2004. Retail businesses
used most of the 8.1 million mystery shops during 2004, with banks,
fast-food restaurants, and gas stations or convenience stores
next in line.
Special training in customer service is part of the cosmetology
curriculum that Teresa Honeycutt, hairstylist at Nell's Hairstyling,
took 16 years ago.
She said her school taught her how to greet people, introduce
herself, carry on a conversation and be friendly and courteous.
And, the training has paid off, she said, because it can make
as much as a 90-percent difference in the number of customers
she has and the size of her tips.
With her training as a background, Honeycutt said she notices
customer service and has seen some businesses become much friendlier.
However, she said she still sees some clerks that aren't.
"They're ugly," Honeycutt said.
She admits that she might be a bit harder on others about customer
service because it's such a large part of her business. Still,
she said if she doesn't like how she is treated, she lets her
pocketbook do the talking.
"Others will grin and bare it," Honeycutt said, "but I'd be doggone
if I'd go back again."
In a national survey conducted by Grass Roots, according to CRM
Lowdown, a customer relations management site, not smiling was
one of three top complaints by 25.9 percent of customers in this
survey, not meeting customers' needs was 26.4 percent, and not
being friendly was 25.8 percent.
