Good or Bad Customer Service

A large part of being a good service provider is ensuring customer convenience.

Study findings show that strong leadership systems focus on customers, motivate employees, and implement their customer service vision. They also focus great attention on gathering the information needed to track customer satisfaction, and employees overall performance. Customer service should be designed and delivered seamlessly from the customer's point of view. Customer-driven operations lead to success. Decentralized, uncoordinated customer service provision makes for a most frustrating experience for customers.

Great food, high-traffic location, and super decor -- all are important to the restaurant business. If you take a close look at what separates the most successful restaurants from the less successful, you will find that all excel on these parameters. In successful organizations, the voice of the customer drives operations. In this paper, I am presenting two different personal customers service encounters, one at McDonald's, and the other one at Tony Romas.

MCDONALD'S

Fast Food, Slow Service:

I have been a customer of McDonalds for the past 20 years and have patronized its stores at least 2 times a week for the past 5 years. Since they have implemented the storage bin and production line for making its burgers, the quality has gone down hill substantially. The food is seldom warm and the service is extremely slow. I realize the company is suffering the effects of a good economy in attaining good help let alone enough help. Nonetheless, as a consumer, they need to know that their new procedure is not good enough. This procedure is no better and is almost exactly, what Burger King does. At least Burger King microwaves their b...

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So many service staff tries to get into conversations with their customers or participate in conversations they hear at the table. The problem is that you are as apt to upset the customers, as you are to build good rapport.

4. "How are you all doing?"

Service people frequently come to you shortly after your meal has been served and ask, "How are you doing?" What is the correct answer to this question? My poll shows that very few people have an answer to this question.

I guess most customer service staff is trying to find out if the food and drinks delivered meet with the satisfaction of the customers. That way, if something is not right, it can be changed.

5. The end is just as important as the beginning

Effective service staff pays just as much attention to the customer at the end of the meal as they do at the beginning.