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No company says, “we are going to only do the bare minimum for the customer but we still expect to hit our profit margin” but yet, the behavior of some companies’ intentions seem to be just that.

Amazingly, 80% of companies report that they give excellent customer service but only 8% of consumers agree with them.

According to New Voice Media, businesses are losing $62 billion per year because of poor customer service; a $20 billion increase since 2013.

New Voice Media further states that only 12.2% of the Fortune 500 companies in 1955 were still on the list in 2014…88% of the companies have either merged, gone bankrupt or still exist but are not in the top Fortune 500.  Now, there are a number of factors that contributed to those companies no longer being listed on the Fortune 500 list including giving less than stellar customer experiences.

It’s time to dig deep, put pen to paper and come up with bright ideas.

One of the special (albeit sometimes annoying) things about children is that they ask “why”—about everything!  In their innocence, they ask questions to make sense of the world around them.  They have a natural curiosity about life; they want to form opinions about what they find fascinating or confusing.

Business leaders should KNOW their “why”.  They know WHAT they do and HOW they do it but they should ask themselves “WHY” am I in this business and WHY am I giving this level of service to my customers?”  The answers should go deeper than “to make more money”, “to get more customers” or “to crush my competition”.  Leaders must identify their purpose for the quality of customer care and experiences they deliver.

Photo courtesy of Morguefile

If you want an up close lesson on how to recover from a major embarrassing moment, keep a close eye on how accounting firm Price Waterhouse Coopers resolves the mix up from the Oscars.

The accounting firm’s client, The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, is due a major  explanation of how/why the error happened not to mention detailed assurances that it will never happen again—assuming they will retain their services.

If you missed it, at Sunday night’s Oscar Awards ceremony the presenters were handed the wrong envelope to announce the winner of the best picture category.  The announced winners gleefully rushed to the stage and giving acceptance speeches when suddenly representatives from Price Waterhouse Coopers walked behind them to say that another movie had actually won.

So….did the accounting firm take the appropriate steps to recover?

Photo courtesy of Morguefile

The hard part of giving great service is to unnecessarily seal your fate potentially to lose market share, loyal customers, dedicated employees, poor social media reviews, and ultimately, your business.

So, what is the easy way to give great service?  Recognizing that you are in charge of delivering high levels of customer service on a consistent basis.

Photo courtesy of Morguefile

Knock it out of the park with your style of phenomenal customer service!!

Want more customer retention?  Do this:  (1) Understand who your customers are, (2) ASK them what they want, (3) when and how they want it and (4) DELIVER it!

Want new customers?  Follow steps 1- 4 listed above!