Generally, I am very critical about the customer service I get from my day to day experience. However, yesterday was a little different than normal. I had to take my son to the doctor, I along with my wife and son went to AIMS ( Asian Institute of Medial Sciences ). The OPD timings were till 5:00 PM and we reached about 2:30 PM. It was a regular working day, and the pediatrics department was otherwise desolate. I saw at the billing desk, it said “Open” but there was no body to attend us. We thought of waiting. And after about 15 mins, as I was getting impatient, we saw a nice woman coming towards us in a saree. She was smiling and as soon as she came near us she asked my wife about the purpose of visit. Very nicely she said sorry and reached to her desk at the billing counter. While she asked my son’s details, she kept on talking to my wife, she told her that since generally there is not much crowd at this hour, she just stepped out for a break. She said she was sincerely sorry to keep us waiting. Believe me, all our anger and frustration had vanished by now.
After doing the billing she informed the doctor and in fact, told him that we have been waiting for a while due to her mistake and requested doctor to see us immediately. Just then we were called in the doctor’s room. Once we were out, our son was getting a little cranky and just when we are leaving, the same lady called us and gave a chocolate to my son. And I was like, WOW ! Is this a hospital? Was it normal for her to behave like this? Believe me, I have been bought over by them, I am sure I ain’t going anywhere else. Would you have felt the same?
This incident made me think as to what are the keys of a true WOW experience for a customer. Here are my thoughts.
1. Speak to them: Yes, you got to speak to the customers. If there has been an error, a mistake, there is no better way than speaking it out with the customer. Talk to them and explain them the situation. Believe me, it will help ease out the situation to a great extent. The way that lady spoke to my wife, while doing her work, helped us understand her situation as well.
2. Smile more often : Smiling is the best remedy, there’s no alternate to a smiling representative. A smile is contagious, if you are smiling and talking, the other person automatically starts smiling. A charming smile can win more customers than a growl ever can.
3. Say Sorry : It’s absolutely okay to say sorry. There’s no harm in it. But the catch here is that you should be genuinely saying sorry and it will reflect in your tone and body language. When that lady said sorry to my wife, she really meant that and was not saying for the heck of it.
4. Be Human : Yes, at the end of the day, we all are human and a human touch is definitely required in every interaction you do with a customer. Unless that was required, with this age of technology, I am sure customer service would have been replaced by machines. It’s important to have that connect. The way she explained her situation to us, the way she informed the doctor to see us immediately, the way she said sorry, everything was pretty human. This is an important factor that defines customer service.
5. Deliver beyond expectations : In today’s world, where companies, even meeting expectations are hard to find, it’s really difficult to find a company exceeding the expectations of the customers. It might not be possible to do that every time, but if that can be inculcated in the culture, I guess, it will help. Giving a chocolate to my son while we were leaving was a great example of delivering beyond expectations. Neither, us ( parents ) nor my son was expecting that delight. And believe me, there’s no better sight for a parent to see his/her child smiling.
With this, I’ll leave you all alone. Keep improving your customer score, keep moving ahead 🙂
Originally posted at my blog here
Praveen Kumar
cool.. great example kamal.. 🙂