When Priscilla and I decided to put tile on our deck, it took us forever to pick just the right pattern. On one visit to a tile store, two great things happened. First, the woman running the shop really listened to what we had to say and quickly directed us to what seemed to be the perfect tile. But before we pulled the trigger, we wanted the opinion of our contractor, Wyatt Anderson. So we called him from the shop, and without a moment’s hesitation, he said, “Stay there, I’ll be right over.” He drove there in less than thirty minutes, looked at the tile, and concurred with our choice. “I think this is going to work really well,” he said.
Wyatt did something that everyone should do if they want to raise customer satisfaction to astronomical levels: he made himself immediately available. He dropped what he was doing and went the extra mile—actually twenty miles, in his case—to be there for his customers. Now Priscilla and I recommend him to anyone in Orlando who needs a contractor.
It might sound obvious that you should be as available to your customers as humanly possible, but it’s amazing how many employees and companies forget this. Haven’t you ever been in a store, or at a bank, or at a place like the DMV, where you practically have to hire a detective to get an answer to a question? Haven’t you ever sat at a restaurant table and had to do everything short of scream to get a menu or a glass of water? That should never happen, and in establishments that put the customer at the center of their universe it doesn’t happen, because employees know to always be available.
A saying I once heard sums up this ethos perfectly: “Don’t be in the storeroom if there’s a customer in the store.” This is a good motto for all kinds of organizations and operations. It applies even to online services, if you think about it. If your business is primarily Web-based, there still needs to be someone waiting to pick up the phone if a customer calls with a problem, and there still needs to be someone on hand to do the support if something on the site goes awry.
This doesn’t apply just to line staff. Whatever your job title, whatever your status, you’re not important enough to seal yourself off. In fact, the greater your authority, the more crucial it is to make yourself visible and available. When an employee comes up against a problem, such as an upset customer or an unusual request that he or she does not have either the knowledge or the authority to handle, someone who does have the knowledge and authority must be easy to reach. To a customer, the response “Let me get my manager” can be a major tension reducer. But the tension will return big-time if he or she has to wait . . . and wait . . . and wait some more before that manager shows up. And it might boil over completely if the end result is “I’m sorry, my manager is not available at the moment.” What is more important than being immediately available for an anxious customer who needs attention?
Nowadays, with all our smartphones and communication devices, anyone who claims he or she can’t be reached is sending the message that he or she does not want to be reached. Once, when I didn’t take her call, Priscilla asked me, “Who is more important than I am?” There is only one answer to that question—nobody—so I advise you to always take calls from your loved ones. In the business context, your customers are the most important people in the world, so you should strive to be just as available for them as you would be for your spouse. Once I learned that important lesson, wherever I worked I instructed my office staff to interrupt me if I got a call from either a customer or my wife. If you think taking calls from customers is beneath you, you’re probably conveying the wrong attitude in other ways as well.
No matter what your position in the company, availability also means being prepared to roll up your sleeves to help take care of customers when the situation calls for it. At companies with reputations for outstanding customer service, managers are always out there getting their hands dirty. One reason Disney World’s percentage of return guests is through the roof is their policy of having frontline managers spend 80 percent of their time out in the park. At Southwest and JetBlue, managers even help clean the planes! It doesn’t matter if it’s not in your job description. It should be. Not only does it make for a happier, more cohesive work environment, but if you’re in a position of authority, I guarantee that your cooperative attitude will rub off on everyone. Those who read my last book, Creating Magic, will remember that one of my leadership lessons is to be careful what you say and do, because as a leader, you are being watched and judged every second of every day. When your employees see you out among the staff and customers, being available to chip in, they will quickly get the message and emulate your service-driven attitude.
If you’re a high-ranking executive at a large company, you may not have the time to get out there and clean planes, and you can’t realistically be available to take every single customer phone call. But even if your customers can’t reach you 24/7, it’s still your responsibility to make sure they have a way to reach someone who can help them. They may not get to vent their frustration or make a suggestion directly to you, but they should find it easy to communicate with your organization in a personal way and be heard at a level that really counts. By this I do not mean a generic e-mail form on your website. Put a phone number there instead and have a real live person answer the phone.
Not long ago, I heard an ad on a PBS broadcast that began: “Support for this podcast comes from Allied Bank, committed to customer service, with the option to reach a human being at any time at [phone number] by pressing zero.” It says a lot that a major bank would use its precious few seconds of airtime to make the promise that a real person will answer the phone, instead of, say, “. . . where you can get good interest rates,” or, “. . . where our mortgage experts are always there to help you.” Take a page from their playbook. People like to talk to fellow human beings, so make sure real human beings in your company are available to talk to customers. Whenever I call Smith, Carney & Co., the Oklahoma City firm that has done my taxes for many years, a receptionist promptly answers the phone and connects me to my accountant, Joe Hornick. Recently, I told Joe how much I appreciate hearing a human voice answer the phone. He told me they’d considered installing an automated phone system but decided not to. They realized that anyone can do taxes, so if they wanted to keep their customers, they had better focus on great service. My stockbrokers, Larry Reed, Mara Levitt, and Brian Coatoam with Merrill Lynch, do the same thing: they answer the phone. And as long as they do, I’ll continue to not only bring them my business, but recommend them to others.
I also suggest putting a mailing address on your website with your name in it, so customers can write to you. Believe it or not, some people still prefer actual postal mail to e-mail, and since having an address to write to is rare these days, providing one will make your company stand out. When I was at Disney, I received and read more than seven hundred letters a month, and it paid off in customer loyalty and bottomline results.
Thanks in part to advances in mobile communication, there are dozens of ways to be available these days. Find the ones that make the most sense for your circumstances, and make sure everyone else on your team does the same. If you ever need to contact me, just go to my website, www.LeeCockerell.com. There you will find my address, my e-mail, and my cell phone number. When you call me, I will answer the phone myself.