Ease up there, professor; we're in a hurry. Cactus & Tropicals, a $1.5-million Salt Lake City nursery, publishes "Cactus Care" tip sheets, makes house calls, and faxes advice to customers with troubled cacti. "I have to educate my customers, or they come back with dead plants," wails Lorraine Miller. Still, she concedes, there is the danger of overkill.
"If a customer doesn't care, I shut up," she says. "When I'm waiting on people, I see what they want." Her customers range from the high-flier with double-parked BMW who "wants the plant for a dinner party," to the black-thumb gardener who pleads, "Come over and take care of my houseplants."
So Miller tailors her service. She is rewarded with an average purchase of $100, which far outshines a norm closer to $50. During a recent house call on a wilting $1,800 Rhapis palm, Miller explained that the pot was the culprit, and the owner forked over $700 for a more appropriate one.
Eventually. Marc J. Beshar, a 38-year-old dentist with a thriving Manhattan practice, knows that not everyone finds his new-patient interview comforting. But the hour-long first visit gives him the chance to explain his philosophy of dental care. He sits down with each patient before he touches a tooth. "When I ask, 'How do you feel about being here?' some answer, 'What the hell kind of question is that?"
He lost both patients and staff when he instituted that "information-please" approach to dentistry. But last year the practice started to grow. Word of mouth has brought him all the business he needs. Beshar's loyal patients value his personal technique and the extras -- like the free baby-sitting service -- that go with it.
In Beshar's case, the well-educated customer is key to repeat business. But surely, all the information in the world can't persuade someone to choose a root canal? "You'd be surprised," he says. "I'm selling high-quality dentistry, and I get people to define how much they value their teeth."
But inform employees first. "I do educate customers, but I guess I'm more into educating my employees," says Rachel Hubka. She holds workshops for her bus drivers on the fine art of asking for business. "At breakfast meetings we go over how to thank the customers and how to tell them they were a good group." Hubka printed business cards for the 125 drivers and pays them commissions on every new charter client they bring in.
Lorraine Miller, too, holds in-house seminars for her 30-person staff. One month the seminar is about "the plant as factory"; another month, it's about customer service. "There's a lot of role-playing of extreme situations." Workers need to learn how to handle customers who bring back expensive plants.
Along with pruning and mulching, certification in customer service is a requirement for field-workers at $22-million Ruppert Landscape, in Ashton, Md. Employees study "the handshake and 'How can I help you?' The basic icebreakers," vice-president Chris Davitt explains. "When the worker is covered with dirt, the customer might not want to ask for help."
ClichÉ: "You're lucky if a satisfied customer mentions your company to a few friends, but you'd better believe that unhappy customers complain to everyone they know."
Make sure they complain to you. Only comfortable customers make a ruckus. Those who aren't blab to everyone but you. Business-to-business sellers are dealt a double wallop: their unhappy customers complain not only to friends but to sales reps, "who pass it on to others who see an opportunity to take over sales territory," Embroidery Services' George Riggs says. Smart CEOs get the scoop quickly and contain the damage. Riggs appeals to about a dozen customer confidants. "I can pick up the phone anytime and talk to them. 'Where are we screwing up?' 'Who's selling better stuff?' They tell me."
And Hubka recently refunded $3,200, more than the price of a charter -- though it nearly killed her. Her drivers were tardy, they took the wrong route, and the passengers, a class of inner-city eighth graders, arrived too late at their destination. There are times when you can negotiate a fix and even share the cost with the customer. Not that time. The morning after the mishap, she issued a $3,200 credit.
"It took some real soul-searching," she reflects. She pauses to do the math: "140 parents, teachers, kids -- that's a lot of bad publicity." But, all in all, Hubka is lucky. When her customers are unhappy, they don't wait to write a letter, she says. "They call immediately. I always know." She attributes that honesty to the trust she and her 23-person staff have developed. Hubka's charter coordinator, Carolyn Braggs, who is also chief "mediator" of service and invoice disputes, took the call from the angry school. "The school felt comfortable enough to call Carolyn." And it is still a customer. That's the up side.
And just think what they'll say when you make them happy again. One CEO on the customer-service lecture circuit implores his audience to see complaining customers as the only kind that help a company grow. He claims he purposely and regularly ships mildly faulty products -- just for the chance to demonstrate his company's responsiveness. An apocryphal tale? Perhaps, but it's often true that once pacified, a disgruntled customer emerges as your best publicist. Nurserywoman Miller recalls a customer who congratulated her on a business award. "He said, 'Remember that time I bought a fuchsia that died, and you replaced it? Well, I told 100 people about that."
And you may not even be at fault. A third party could be to blame. Act as intermediary to devise a solution, and you'll be double the hero. When a consumer wrote a nasty letter to trailer maker Contract Manufacturers, CEO Ron Jackson himself called the customer and discovered that the tires were the issue, not the trailer. He arranged for replacements and reimbursement from Goodyear.
