Did you find everything you were looking for?Albert Einstein once said, “Whoever is careless with the truth in small matters cannot be trusted with important matters.” No matter what company you work for or what exactly you do, you are engaged in the very important matter of serving your customers to the best of your ability. When it comes to service, no truth is too small to be careless about.
If you do not know the truth about what your customers need and want, think and feel, you will not make the right decisions about serving them. What could be more obvious? Yet many organizations fail to make a priority of seeking out the truth. They prefer to spend their days in willful ignorance, basking in the (false) conviction that they know everything there is to know about their customers. Finding the truth is not always comfortable, because it can have sharp edges. But if you don’t know about those sharp edges, they will cut you when you least expect it. You’ll see the blood on the bottom line when your customers run for the hills.
One reason you have to dig for the truth, rather than expect it to come to you, is that people don’t like to rock the boat. True, some customers are quick to complain when they are unsatisfied; these are the ones who stand out. But what about all the ones who don’t complain because they’re too timid or simply because they are nice people who don’t want to get anyone in trouble? In fact, most customers would prefer to settle for less-than-perfect service rather than get into a confrontation or spend their valuable time hassling, and they won’t make the truth known unless something really egregious or costly occurs. I have to admit that I’m that way myself. When an employee of a business asks me how everything was, more often than not I say, “Everything was fine,” even if it wasn’t. In some cases, I just don’t have the time or energy to explain what was wrong. In other instances, I’ve already made up my mind not to do business with that company again, so I figure, why bother? This is why you need to put in that extra effort to uncover how customers really feel about the service they receive from you.
Oscar Wilde once said that “the pure and simple truth is rarely pure and never simple.” I interpret this to mean one should never settle for easy answers and never let mere facts pass for the truth. That’s why I work harder to discern the reality beneath the facts, whether it’s in regard to my personal relationships, public affairs, or business. That’s a good route to follow when it comes to customer service, too. The real truth is what the customers genuinely feel, not what you or your employees think they feel. As I tell everyone in my speeches, “Don’t believe everything you think. At least half of it is probably not true.”
I once saw another quote that stuck in my mind: “I shouldn’t have eavesdropped, but sometimes that’s the only way to find out the truth.” I’ll admit it, over the course of my career I eavesdropped on customers a lot. I got into the habit when I was waiting tables, back at the beginning of my career. Once I realized how much I could learn about the people at my tables by listening to their chatter (it’s amazing what diners will say in front of a waiter), I was able to bring them things I heard they wanted and fix the things I heard them complain about. Plus, because eavesdropping helped me understand them better, I was able to deliver those little things they didn’t even know they wanted but that ended up making the experience more pleasurable for them. After a while, I noticed I was getting above average tips and that many guests were asking to be seated at my table when they returned. I never forgot that.
Having learned the value of knowing the truth, I kept eavesdropping even when I was an executive running huge operations. I would wander anonymously through the lobbies of the hotels I was managing or the dining rooms of the restaurants I was overseeing, like a spy, just watching and listening. In fact, even now that my corporate days are over, I still eavesdrop, because I learn a lot that way. I do it so much that Priscilla often scolds me for being so obvious about it.
Of course, there are other ways to learn the truth besides spying on your customers—first and foremost being to simply ask them directly! I believe that every employee who comes into contact with customers should be trained to ask questions designed to get at the truth. These might include the following:
Did you find everything you were looking for?
Is there anything else I can do for you today?
What can we do better?
What do we do that you don’t particularly like?
Is there anything else we could have done to make your time with us better?
What do we do well that keeps you coming back?
Would you recommend us to your best friend and loved ones? If yes, why? If no, why not?
In addition, every business should keep a log of customer complaints. And don’t discount the power of the traditional survey. These days, you can use everything from smartphone apps to live Internet chats to find out what customers really think about you. But always remember to dig deeper, listen harder, and never settle for the first thing you hear. Your customers will translate the queries as “These people really care.”
As the Buddha said, “Three things cannot be long hidden: the sun, the moon, and the truth.” Just like the sun and the moon, the truth will reveal itself in time. If your customers don’t tell you the hard truth, they’ll tell it to their friends—including all their Facebook friends—and that could be the beginning of the end for your business. Don’t let the truth reveal itself on your customers’ Facebook pages or Twitter feeds. Instead, make sure it’s revealed to you. The truth is golden, and each customer is a goose that lays golden eggs.