What Customers Want and Rarely Get

Today I went to rent a car. I won't mention the company as I do not like to slam companies, but the employees there made it very painful for me to do business with the company.

The purpose of great customer service is to understand what customers want and give it to them. Unfortunately most businesses in the U.S want cheap labor and often time just hire anyone to do a job that appears to be meaningless but requires people who should have skills.

When you deal with the public and customers, employees should have people skill and be great with customers. That is what we call, excellent customer service which will get you always farther that your competitors whose customer service is terrible. Companies should never compete on price but on customer service. And that is what is needed these days since social media that break or make your business.

Today during my rental car experience I was dealing with unfriendly employees who never smiled at me and truly made my car rental experience quite awful and painful.

Customers walk into a business to buy a product or a service. The experience and process should be smooth and enjoyable. That is what people want. But walking into a business and dealing with unfriendly employees makes the experience quite unpleasant.

It is quite amazing to offer a terrible customer experience when you think that you are spending your hard earned money and that the fact that you do business with a company you pay the employees' bills and that they are so ungrateful to you.

Companies in America needs to rethink the way they do business. They should always keep in mind that they cannot simply put anyone to do the a job, particularly when you have to deal directly with the public. Those employees should be highly skilled, warm, pleasant, smiling and have great customer skills.

Sure it may sound like an opportunity to save money by hiring just anyone to do a job, but the lack of training and unpleasant experience they offer to your customers will drive away customers.

What you gain on one side, you lose on the other end. You may save money by paying someone the minimum wage or close to it, but the fact that you do not hire and train the right people will make yu lose money in the long run. The choice is yours!

Andre Plessis
AP Consulting
Customer Service Expert
Tel: 310-266-9463