Demystifying customer care

difficult for non-aquatic organisms to understand correctly the aquatic cycles unless one is an aquatic scientist.
It is therefore safe to say that most good fishermen make intelligent assumptions about the behaviour of bass fish at certain lunar times of the year.
Some have so much intelligence on the matter such that they have learnt to accurately synchronise their fishing times with the major feeding hours of bass.
Those who have greater insight and are willing to invest in research have higher chances of understanding the behaviour of bass at any particular period.
On the other hand, there are aggressive fishermen who do not invest much in research and development but in sheer power and ambition.
These types of fishermen catch bass by engaging it in a fight for territorial sovereignty.
They keep on disturbing the tranquillity of the environment until the bass losses its composure and entice it to feed even when it is not hungry.
This is similar to companies (with very deep pockets) that invest huge sums in advertising.
They keep on bombarding the customer with adverts of their products and making the goods available at every possible convenience store until customers are tempted to try them.
The third and most common applied approach is that of sharing information on the rubbers or rapplers that are doing well during that time.
As a result of acquiring such information, most fishermen go on to invest in such rubbers.
The success rate depends on how long the weed pattern maintains its colour and to some extent how long the weather pattern remains constant. An abrupt change in weather patterns normally upsets this cycle.
This is similar to most customer care programmes that have been put in place by many companies.
There is commonly accepted wisdom that clients want to be known and to be greeted by their first names.
They must be made to feel important. There is also need to teach staff members on how to deal with angry customers.
Client services personnel must acknowledge their mistakes and listen to the customer before coming up with solutions that satisfy the customer.
Just like the sharing information about rubbers this is a commonly used as a reactive approach (i.e. how to react when a customer is angry or dissatisfied.)
The approach emphasises treating customers nicely and the reactive approach is used if the customer becomes dissatisfied.
The weaknesses of this methodology is its lack of emphasis on core serious skill acquisitions that guarantees zero defects or zero errors which are the main sources of customer’s dissatisfaction.  
Do we always need to respond when the customer is upset?
A bank that I am closely associated with has client services personnel and managers who excel in politeness and in knowing their customers’ names.
The function of these members of staff , however, is just limited to that of being cash dispensers just like automated teller machines.
If one bothers to ask any of the staff members about other services they have such as revolving credit facilities, overdrafts, letters of credits, bankers’ acceptances, they will be very quick to refer you to either international banking division, treasury or corporate banking division.
These staff members are also extremely smart in appearance. No doubt about that, they have been drilled to be smart, polite and courteous but they are found wanting where it matters most, i.e. “product knowledge”.
Smiles and respect are necessary but empty smiles do not assist in solving customer’s problems.
Customer care is about talking nicely with the correct and up-to-date solutions that help to solve the customer’s needs.  
During our time as claims personnel in the insurance industry, there were paper pushers and claims personnel.
Paper pushers excelled in responding to clients within 24 hours but without attending to the real issues affecting the clients.
Often statements such as, “There are no developments to date, or we will keep you posted of further developments later were favourite payoff lines.’’
However, it suffices to mention that they would not have conducted the assessor or the third party insurers to check progress, they did what was simpler, push the paper quickly.
This approach assumes customers are delighted by early feedback but if the quality of the feedback is low the customer will still be dissatisfied.
Today most beautiful or handsome personal assistants tell you that their boss is too busy to attend to you when the boss is playing cards on the computer or busy checking photos of women or men on WAYN.
They politely turn away the “would-be customers” without attending to the core issues of their visit.
The assumption among most businessmen  or women is that beautiful or handsome personnel or Coloureds attract and retain customers.
Consequently most offices have been decorated with gorgeous personal assistants who have absolute no understanding of the nature of the business they are in, but they are there to attract people with unrestricted sexual appetite.
What is not clear is whether there is a strong correlation between these “would-be prey” and the targeted market and whether “the prey” constitutes a critical mass in their business.
Probably they behave like the powerful bass fisherman who keeps on probing the environment until they find a bass.
A beautiful working environment which is manned by beautiful empty heads only serves to marvel the customer but still falls short in delivering the customer to the promised land.
Some beautiful or handsome (not all) staff members think they are trophies and therefore customers should treat them likewise.
This can turn away the potential customers. One does not need to be intelligent to understand that over-decorated offices without the correctly equipped personnel still falls short in delivering good customer satisfaction and results in negative returns to one’s investments.
Recently my cousin and I visited one company, which sells tiles and modern household fittings in the Avenues.
The whole company is manned by personnel dressed in immaculate suits despite the fact that some of their products are bulky and have to be loaded into a client’s car.
I was assisting a cousin to purchase some fittings. Before we purchased the goods the men in suits told us that all the goods in the showroom were available.
However, after purchasing we were advised that some of the goods would be made available after two months.
The men in suits were a bit lazy to confirm with the storehouse whether all goods we wanted were still in stock or were ever in stock.
They were drilled to quickly close sales of available or unavailable goods. Customer        satisfaction does not only come from admiring “good suits” or immaculate merchandise on display.
Rather it comes from getting the goods at the correct price and at the correct time. Customers punish businesses which eat into their time.
Customer care is not a piecemeal approach; it combines knowledge acquisition (in relevant disciplines), continuous innovation and hassle- free delivery channels. Smiles and beauty are not good enough to retain the customer.
The basis of success of any business is by solving mankind’s challenges thereby making life easier for mankind.
Mankind, like bass fish, struggles to find solutions that satisfy its needs partly because there is an information gap and partly because man is generally lazy to move a gear up to help the customer enjoy the convenience of these services.
If companies want to satisfy the needs of their customers they must find ways of thinking like their targeted customers.
They must put themselves in the shoes of their customers and then come up with offerings, which will make themselves happy had they been the customers.
The writer is a managing consultant at CLC Training International. E-mail [email protected].