Service golden rule of business success

The Press reports that KiwiHost managing director Simon Nikoloff says that customer service is the most important part of what businesses do and while many have been slow to realise this, things are changing.

Businesses are recognising a need to make sure they have the right face in the market place, especially when consumers are tightening their belts, says Nikoloff who leads New Zealand’s largest provider of customer experience management programmes.

“Service is the single differentiating factor today. The products are the same, they more or less do the same thing as each other, warranties are the same. It comes down to building a relationship with a provider and that’s the most important part of the equation these days.”

Business confidence is low, with 44 per cent of companies reporting a drop in profits in the first three months of this year and 47% expecting falling profits in the next three, according to a Quarterly Survey of Business Opinion released last week by the New Zealand Institute of Economic Research.

Such figures make every contact with the customer even more important, Nikoloff says.

“It means you have to focus on your staff and make sure every sales inquiry is a captured inquiry. At the moment try and get a sparky or a plumber to come to your house, they are not interested, but when they start scratching for work the one that gives you the best service you will use.”

Businesses also have to keep up with changes in the way customers want to be treated, which has radically changed in the last five years.

Nikoloff says customers are no longer naive or uninformed. When they go into a business they usually know exactly what they want because they have already researched the item on the internet.

“Customers are a lot more well researched than they have ever been. It’s far more convenient to do the research yourself and far more available than it’s ever been.”

People find the question “can I help you?” irritating, and it is no longer the golden rule of good customer service. These days people only want help when they’re ready for it.

“Customers might still want help eventually. They will ask for it when they are ready. First moves by customer service staff can be seen as aggressive and pushy if the timing is not right.”

A bright smile and offer to help doesn’t cut it anymore when trying to make a good impression.

KiwiHost advises businesses to greet the customer and then disappear until they get a signal for help. “When a customer is ready to buy, they want it and they want it then and won’t tolerate anything less.”

A Perceptions of Customer Service in New Zealand survey, released in November last year, found that only 33% of respondents were satisfied with the level of customer service they received.

When it was broken down into industries, retailers gave the best service, with 42% of respondents mentioning a retail store when asked to name a business that provided them with great service.

The results of others were much less impressive. Cafes and restaurants scored 8%, banking 6.8% and government organisations 2.5%.

Canterbury University Students’ Association (CUSA) put more than 30 front line staff and supervisors through a KiwiHost course in February and is already seeing the benefits.

The association runs three bars and six cafes on campus and realised last year it needed to improve customer service and its delivery to the students, who are also members, general manager Andrew Paterson says.

“The students today are a lot more discerning.” They know when they are getting a good cup of coffee and when service is poor.

The association has a captured market to some extent, but there are also two cafes on campus that it does not operate and it also faces competition off-campus.

Business has been dropping in recent years and the KiwiHost course was part of several initiatives put in place to improve performance.

Paterson says the initiatives were already providing a return on investment because sales are up on last year.

In a climate where businesses are finding it tough, you would think some firms might decide they cannot afford to spend $425 on an advanced customer service course or $255 for a half-day course to learn how to make a good first impression, which would lead to a drop in demand.

But Nikoloff says the exact opposite happens and demand for its courses rise. “We are counter cyclical to the economy. When the economy is less buoyant we go into a very buoyant time, a number of industries are the same.”

Demand is increasing, causing KiwiHost to expand. Nikoloff plans to double the company’s size in the next three to four years.

There are 18 KiwiHost franchises across New Zealand and Nikoloff wants to add another 18 mostly in the main cities and some smaller regional centres.

He wouldn’t say how fast the company has grown in the past five years, but Kiwihost was founded by Tourism New Zealand in 1990. It was formed to improve service in the tourist industry and in 1998 the company was sold to private investors including Nikoloff.

More than 250,000 people from 30,000 organisations have participated in KiwiHost courses since 1990. It has no national competitors providing similar training, but there are individuals around offering customer service expertise.

Retail and hospitality forms only a small part of KiwiHost’s business.

Demand mostly comes from professional practices — veterinarians, medical services, cleaning companies, taxi firms, freight staff and a range of wholesale supply businesses.

By :The Mole