If two-thirds of customers leave because they were treated poorly…treat them well! If a new customer is five times more costly to get than keeping an existing customer…keep the old one. Sounds simple, doesn’t it?

Warren Buffett said, “There is no more classy or successful company than Enterprise Rent-A-Car.” Enterprise connects employee advancement with customer satisfaction. All organizations have two generic types of customers; outside, the ones who purchase your products or services and inside, those responsible for delivering them.

Take care of your customers and employees and the bottom line will take care of itself. Enterprise goes the “extra mile” for customers and will pick them up at their home, work, or the airport and has established branches within 15 miles of 90 percent of the American population to facilitate that service.

How do you link customer satisfaction to career success? A high customer satisfaction rating is necessary for advancement at Enterprise. An employee, whose score is below the company average but otherwise in line for a better position, won’t get it until their rating improves.

“Providing service that completely satisfies customers isn’t a mystery or a high-cost endeavor,” according to Kirk Kazanjian, author of Exceeding Customer Expectations. “Rather it involves the basics: Shaking hands with people, looking them in the eye, greeting them by name, finding out what their needs and concerns are, and solving their problems.”

To measure customer satisfaction, face-to-face surveys should occur immediately after the use of your product or service so that emotions can be observed along with answers. Enterprise discovered that written surveys aren’t taken seriously, aren’t reliable and seldom returned.

Enterprise surveys include questions about every customer “contact” or “touch point” and understands that customers generally experience positive, negative and neutral emotions during their car rental experience. Properly designed survey questions will tell you what your customer’s negative and neutral experiences are as well as where they occur in your business process.

While your customer service representative may have been wonderful, the voice prompts to get to them may have been annoying. Start with your customer’s first contact with you. If by phone ask: How many rings before the call got answered? How often are they put on hold? How pleasantly were they are greeted and how effectively did the greeter guide you to the next step?

Does your business have personal contact with customers? Enterprise looks on this as a valuable opportunity to build strong relationships with customers. Employees are expected to be prompt and courteous, establish eye contact, use the customer’s name, talk personably and help load personal items.

Does your business treat customers like family? If there is a process or specific way to benefit most from your product or service, is it thoroughly explained? If a problem or question arises during use, does the customer have a help line to call?

Does your business get involved with licenses, agreements or contracts? Enterprise trains its employees to clearly explain the important aspects of the rental contract, so they’re aware of exactly what they’re signing.

If mail order is involved: Was it shipped on a timely basis? Was it packaged properly? Can the customer easily understand how it operates and is there a hot line to handle questions or complaints?

If a tangible product is involved, how is it presented, sold and serviced? With Enterprise: Was the rental sold properly? Was the car clean and did the customer know how to use the cruise control, release the gas cap for filling and use the rest of the features before driving off?

If a service has been provided: Was it completed on time? Were the people courteous? Are there follow up procedures? Was it easy to get and pay for and did it exceed your customer’s expectations?

Nothing is perfect and if there is a problem what is it like to return a product or get a refund? How difficult is it to adjust a bill for disappointing service?

In addition to handling the complaint quickly and efficiently, employees should smile, express genuine concern and ask how the product or service failed to meet their expectations in order to fix the problem so it won’t disappoint anyone else. Thank the customer for helping you to understand the issue and ask for their suggestions as to how to make it better next time.

Invite them to return regardless of the experience they had. If they had a problem, allow them to try it again for free. If they were satisfied, an invitation to return is a friendly reminder that you stand ready to meet their future needs.

Two-thirds of customers leave because they were treated poorly and a new customer cost five times more to get than keeping an existing one. Instead of waiting for complaints, personally survey your customers and try to sense any unhappiness. Then render “real” customer service and make their situation better!

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