Sam Walton once said, There is only one boss the customer. And he can fire everybody from the chairman on down, simply by spending his money somewhere else. No truer words were spoken when it comes to customer service.
In the economy today, economic downturns have affected everyone. When a manufacturer or producer experiences a downturn in business, every business in their supply chain is affected. As a result, vendors such as pallet recyclers offer many pallets at an extremely low price, often at the expense of service.
It can be easy to elevate sales over service although this can have long-term impacts on key customer relationships. Even major corporations have moved to more sales-based approaches to service. But it can be difficult to maintain quality when service representatives are measured more by sales quotas than providing the client what they expect.
From my own personal experience in pallet rental, CHEP moved away from a field-based approach to a centralized call-center approach to customer service in 2008. CHEP claims this is working better for its customers. But I have my doubts about how effective customer service can be when you have less face time with clients.
Customers are now expecting the same pallet at a much lower price with the same service or they will simply call the next pallet recycler. As a pallet recycler, you must be able to meet all expectations or at least give the perception of superior customer service. Here are my top five keys to superior customer service for pallet programs based on my years of experience.
1.) Communication is the first key to superior customer service. Great customer service needs to go beyond receiving the incoming call for an order. Smart pallet suppliers will stop by on a regular basis to discuss a clients unique needs. This includes seeing if any adjustments to load frequency and specifications need to be made and advising on current trends that might help improve their operations.
In most cases, wood pallets are over engineered. You might suggest ways to build a pallet that could save the customer money while not jeopardizing the structural integrity of the unit load. Dr. White has some good advice on cutting costs in his article on page 16 of the November issue.
Call your customer between orders just to keep open the lines of communication. Talk about sports, family or whatever they want. This relationship building component always helps. In my case, every Christmas I would take a dozen of my mother-in-laws tamales (best north of the Rio Grande) to my biggest clients. It was a hit every time and became a tradition they remembered.
2.) Responsibility is the second most critical component of superior customer service because the last thing a customer wants to hear is excuses. In any business, things will go wrong. Formerly as a customer service rep at CHEP, I had to deal with many customers that were not happy about the perceived quality issues with delivered blue pallets.
At one manufacturer, quality became a real issue, and the customer was not happy. Complaints were coming from the top right down to the field customer service team. After the yelling subsided, the first words out of my mouth were, do not judge the company based on this pallet; judge us for what I am going to do to fix it. After that, we were able to have a discussion on what action plan I was going to put into place. There were many steps, and many people involved to correct the problem, but it was resolved. The point is the customer trusted that its customer service representative would get the job done.
3.) Take action is the third step in the process. Up until now I have stressed communication, but saying the right words means nothing if you dont back them up with action. You need to know what actions you are willing to take to meet your service obligations. Your solution needs to consist of a few points:
A.) Identify the problem
B.) Create an action plan
C.) Implement the action plan
D.) Resolve the problem
E.) Explain what you are doing to ensure it does not happen again.
When it comes to pallets, many things can go wrong from the repair table to the customer. Action items are often used as a stall technique. Action plans are written and presented on how the quality will improve; logistics will deliver within the allotted window and so on. Too many unresolved action plans and you may lose the trust of the customer; once that happens your word will no longer be good enough. If you write an action plan, take the next step and follow up.
4.) Follow up is the next critical step. This point leads back to communication and ensuring that your previous three points were accomplished according to your word. Follow up shows that you care about your customers business and are attempting to give the best service possible. Effective follow up requires that all items in your action plan be sent to the right people. This will frequently mean multiple areas within your organization and key customer contacts. Passing information to your support team will show the customer that more than the customer service department is concerned with the problem.
5.) Support is the final critical step. It involves contacting departments within your organization that impact the account. This might include the operations manager, billing/administration, sales, logistics and other departments.
In the case I mentioned above, quality was at an all time low for this customer. CHEP uses third party pallet management companies to receive, repair and ship their pallets. In this case, the owner of the third party company personally came down and guaranteed he would do his part to help fix the problem. This showed the customer a united front of support.
The art of distraction is used by many and mastered by few. Many organizations use distraction to deflect the current issue with another. This is a dangerous method when smoothing over attitudes at a customer meeting, leaving the underlying issue untouched for another day, and it will come back to bite you. The art of distraction is a good temporary patch, as long as you correct the problem quickly. Unfortunately, many organizations distract and never act to fix the problem, which will likely result in your customers looking elsewhere for better service.
In this article, we discussed the five key elements to superior customer service communication, responsibility, action, follow up, and support. There are many opinions on the best way to service a customer and many ways to get it wrong. At the end of the day, you should know your customer. My best advice when it comes to customer service is to tell them what you are going to do, and do it.
Andrew Mosqueda is a former Inventory Project Manager and Customer Service Rep for CHEP USA. He has extensive experience with pallet rental and recycling programs for major shippers. Andrew can be reached at mosqueda.andrew@gmail.com.
