The customer is not always right
I tend to be a very ‘hands on’ person when it comes to helping customers and I’d like to think my companies’ service levels are considered very high.. I’d use the word fanatical but I think Rackspace already use that term.
We have customers to use both our services and those of other providers be it co-location, servers, connectivity, e-mail, web hosting or something else and I’ve noticed two things:
- When a customer joins us for the first time, and they have a problem with their server for example, they call us and ask whether we have a network problem (or “is the Internet down?” in laymen’s terms) to which the answer is usually “No. If we had a network problem, I’d hope we already knew about it before you :-p” (the smiley explains the tone). This happens a few times until they realise if there’s a problem, it’s probably not with our network.
- When a customer has a problem with something that isn’t caused by us, if they think it even might be, they call us first, because we are ‘accessible’.. i.e. They can get through to us.. Other companies might not offer phone support, might charge premium rates for it or might just not give the right answer (or dare I even say, might claim it’s our problem). This gets annoying because it’s offloading the costs of their support on us (as it often takes us time to check it’s not actually us having the problem).
We have customers who truly understand the value of the service, and I find those are the ones who I even have to talk out of buying something I feel they don’t need. I like them because they listen to my advice (whether it gains or loses us revenue) when making decisions, and rather than always going for the lowest cost service, they welcome the list of options and then make an educated decision (and sometimes, that may be not to buy the service at all).
I have also found most sales enquiries we get are from customers who either don’t understand their own requirement (which is fine, we’re here to help) or, and this is very common, over-specify their requirement by a large factor (100% or more usually). If a customer insists on buying a service they don’t need, then so be it, who am I to complain? What concerns me is when other companies quote for the service they think the customer needs but pretend it’s what the customer actually asked for. We tend to explain to the customer why we think another solution is better (and often cheaper), but they feel they are getting less, when in fact they’re not wasting resources on services they don’t need.
The supplier-customer relationship is a two way process driven by supply and demand and the interaction between the two agents. It should not only be a customer-driven process.
The customer is not always right.
February 15th, 2008 at 6:00 am
When I was with marketing one of the things I learnt was that the important lesson to be learned was not trying to sell my product, but to listen and establish the customers needs.
You hope that you have a product that will match those needs and if not tell them so. If you do match their needs successfully and most importantly your customer is aware that you are focuses on their priorities you are usually in the position to keep the business long term.
Where I would disagree with your assertion that the customer is not always right is the fact you are basing that assumption on your perceptions. It may well be that a customer is on an ego trip and wants bells and whistles when they are not needed in a functional way, but may well be needed emotionally for some reason. Some people shop at Harrods, pay well over the odds for goods and the buying motive may well be because they want to be seen with the Harrods bag as they walk along.;-)
Not advocating selling up, but a customer’s buying motives are they key, give them the info to make a informed judgment, and then if they want 3 bells and 4 whistles, so be it, the customer is right.