10 Commandments of Customer Service

7. Attitude, attitude, attitude; you have the choice to make it positive or negative. A positive attitude is a driving force toward happiness and success. Customers like to do business with happy successful people. If someone is having a bad day your positive upbeat attitude will be contagious and could end up being just the medicine they need.

8. The customer is always right, even when they are not! What I mean here is that we can all see the same thing, or view the same event and draw different conclusions based on our perceptions. It therefore becomes important to remember that your customer may perceive something differently than you do, and who is “right” holds far less significance than understanding the difference in perception, which has the potential to ultimately lead to agreement.

9. Give the customer more than they expect. The concept of underpromising and overdelivering is not new, yet how many of us actually take the time or effort to deliver more than the customer expected. Master this skill and you are sure to build loyalty with your customers.

10. If a customer expectation cannot be met offer a choice of alternatives. There certainly are times when as much as we would like to deliver what the customer is asking for it may not be possible. If we can shift the customer’s focus to a couple of alternatives, we have interrupted the negative focus of the need not being met. The key to this is offering the customer the alternative choices, and letting them choose.

In the end, how a customer feels, more than what they think when they leave your facility or complete the transaction, will determine if you will ever see them again. Be cognizant of the fact that it is seven times more difficult to get a new customer than retain the one you have.

Challenge yourself; each week, add one new commandment to what you are already doing. If each employee in your organization did the same, the level of customer service would increase dramatically. Internally, you could expect to see more effective communications between co-workers, more cooperation and cohesiveness among teams, increased customer retention and loyalty, and an overall up-tick in morale and productivity. AMT

DeborahAnn Cavalcante leads Diversified Aviation Consulting (DAC) and has firsthand experience in air carrier operations, private charter aircraft, general aviation operations, military/civilian interface, FBO management, maintenance repair station training, safety training, human factors training, and customer service training. For more information on DAC visit www.dac.aero.

DeborahAnn Cavalcante earned her Master of Aeronautical Science, with a specialization in Safety Management from Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University in Daytona, FL, and her Bachelor of Science from VA Tech in Business and Risk Management.