WHEN customers of Architectural Plants in Horsham, Sussex, receive the invoice for their order they also receive a small envelope containing two silver balloons and a piece of string. The label on the envelope reads: “A slightly strange and really rather selfish request: this envelope contains a couple of silver balloons and some string. If you could bear to blow them up and hang them outside your house as close to the road as possible, it would make life wonderfully simple for our driver who will be looking for your house to deliver your plant. Many thanks.”
It is a small thing, but according to Angus White, the founder of Architectural Plants, it has paid dividends. Customers get their deliveries on time and they know that the company they are buying from cares that they do. “I would say that 99% of people do it. It is really nice,” he said.
The balloons are just one way in which Architectural Plants has gone the extra mile to please its customers. Inside the store are comfy sofas where customers can help themselves to free coffee and biscuits and think about what they want to buy.
White said the whole thrust of the company’s policy was to treat customers as equals. “Even if somebody phones up to complain I try to make it clear that I am not interested in having an “indignant customer, defensive shopkeeper” type of conversation. It is pointless. I tell them we are going to have an intelligent conversation and find a solution to the problem. If you underestimate customers’ intelligence, you are in trouble.”
Customer service is like a stone dropped into a pond. When it is done well the effects spread far and wide. When it is done badly exactly the same thing happens.
The good news is that small businesses are in a better position to get it right – and correct it quickly if it is wrong. This is because owners of smaller firms are closer to their customers – they are more likely to talk to them direct, and the customers are more likely to tell them if they have had a bad experience.
Tom Talbot, managing director of the business improvement consultancy Talbot & Associates and chairman of the northeast branch of the Institute of Business Consulting, said the secret to achieving good customer service was to treat every customer as an individual.
“The aim of every organisation, no matter how big or small, is to end up with a segmentation of one – which means that every customer is a unique individual and your products or services are tailored for him,” he said. “Small businesses are in a good position to do this because they are flexible, they can change direction for each customer, and they can make a decision and implement it within days rather than weeks in a big company.”
The simplest way to treat your customers as individuals, he said, is to talk to them. “The easiest way for small companies to make sure they are doing what their customers want is to ask them. Don’t be afraid to ask them what they think. Am I doing this in the way that is right for you? Is there something different I could do that would help you with our product? Understand your customers, understand what they want and then deliver your product or service according to that.”
Sarah Manby started up her online business Mango Mutt selling natural and organic accessories for dogs (Mangomutt.co.uk) in 2004 after struggling to find a nice collar for her black Labrador Murphy.
Being passionate about dogs, she realised she did not want Mango Mutt to be simply another anonymous website selling products and wanted to get to know her customers. So she started replying to every customer’s e-mail, asking them how their dogs were getting on. She also started up a forum for dog owners on the site, and now invites every new customer to send in a photo of their dog to put up on the website so that people who visit the site can vote for their favourite dog each month. The winner receives a bag of organic, handmade dog biscuits – which Manby bakes herself at home. She also regularly walks her dog with local customers and their dogs.
“Buying something online can be a soulless experience. You are sat there at a computer and you just get an automated response that your goods have been dispatched,” she said. “I believe that the way forward for a small business such as Mango Mutt is to get to know your customers, and this will hopefully make them want to come back and purchase from me again.”
When Manby set up a forum on the website asking customers for their feedback, the response was overwhelmingly positive. “Customers were telling me they love the experience of shopping with Mango Mutt because they feel a part of the business and that is what makes them want to come back,” she said. “I never want to stop treating my customers like individuals because that is what has made my business succeed.”
Neil Wilson, director of Customer Essential, a customer-management consultancy, saida small business’s ability to provide good customer service could make a huge difference to its fortunes. “Companies lose business because they are difficult to deal with or are complicated. If you deliver what you say you are going to do, you have a much better chance of keeping that customer,” he said.
And vice versa. Wilson points out that the recent campaign by Talk Talk, the phone company, to launch its free broadband service was a classic example of how
not to do it.
“Talk Talk came up with a cunning offer, but it didn’t have the capacity to cope with the number of calls it received or to deal with the technical elements. It was a public-relations disaster.”
The secret of providing good customer service, he said, is to treat it as an integral part of your business, and not as an afterthought.
He advised: “Listen to your customers and find out exactly what they want in terms of customer service. Put yourself in their shoes. Make sure the people in your organisation who deal with customers have been told about a new marketing campaign, for example, and give them enough time to be trained up so they can understand what the offer is.”
He warns that the internet is making it increasingly hard for businesses to get away with shoddy customer service. “It used to be that people would stay with their bank or telephone provider for ever but now, because of the increased transparency the internet provides, it is easier to switch and people are much more willing to do that. There are fewer places to hide for organisations with bad customer service.”
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