The Hindu Business Line : Satisfying customer needs

We want to be respected. We want to feel acknowledged as a person and for what we are. Being ignored or being seen as an intrusion is something none of us like.
If the salesman is taking time to understand the customer instead of jumping to sell a product, it makes the customer comfortable and builds confidence in the salesperson.

Make the customer feel important.

Ramesh Venkateswaran

Last week we saw that selling is about satisfying customer needs and that customers have two types of needs to be satisfied – physical or tangible need and personal or psychological need. Retaining customers is about going beyond mere satisfact ion. It is about making them happy and delighted so that they want to come back.

Let us see what needs sales and service providers must satisfy that will make customers feel good and happy.

These are fairly basic human needs and apply to all whether young or old, rich or poor, man or woman. I believe these are very basic after the roti, kapda, makaan needs. We will also see that these needs are interrelated and the solution to all is almost common. While there could be many personal needs, I would categorise them into four broad categories with the understanding that most other needs would fall into these categories.

Customers want to be respected

We want to be respected. We want to feel acknowledged as a person and for what we are. Being ignored or being seen as an intrusion is something none of us like. We need to ask ourselves how often we do this in our interactions with customers or colleagues. What can service providers do to show respect? A lot, which is quite simple really.

We show respect by attending to a person. When we are talking to a person and we get distracted by someone else or receive phone calls or look somewhere else or do our own work like writing or working on a computer terminal, what we are really showing is a lack of respect for the person in front of us.

In today’s context, we have an even more common and yet a really unacceptable situation. A salesperson sits in front of a customer (I will change it to - a person sits in front of another person, as this can be any personal interaction context) and while one person is talking (the customer), the other person (the sales or CR person) takes a call on his mobile or plays around with SMS. I believe this is downright rude and shows total lack of respect for the other person. Adding insult to injury, it never ceases to amaze me that I find so many sales/service people meeting me after an appointment they have sought, and then in my office, on my time, take calls on their mobiles for doing some of their business.

I have now learnt to tell people who come to see me on sales calls to switch off their phones while they talk to me in my office on my time. I am the customer. What amazes me even more is that companies spend a large amount of money on service training and customer handling and do not drive home these basics. Respect, as I see it, is to focus on the person we are dealing with and give undivided attention to him or her.

I have also not understood why customer-facing people get interrupted by other colleagues and telephone calls. In my book of rules, this is unacceptable. This should be part of Customer Service 101 in any programme.

Customers want to feel important

Leading from this is a similar need – we want to feel important. When a customer deals with a salesperson, she likes to believe she is the most important factor in the success of the salesperson and the company. What can we do to show that she is important and that we value her business? Quite simply, as we saw above, by respecting the person.

How often do we find ourselves as a customer standing in front of a sales or service person, and the person not even looking up and acknowledging your presence? True, the person behind the counter or desk may be busy or with another customer. Can he still do something meaningful to acknowledge the other person without upsetting the person he is dealing with? A smile, a nod to show that he has registered the customer’s presence, is a good enough place to start. Or a short and pleasant ‘will be with you in a while’ and ‘thanks for waiting’ shows you value the customer and her presence.

As a salesman, I have found many simple ways of sending the message across to the other person that he is important and that I value his time. If I meet a customer in my office, I would consciously clear my table of papers and material so that there is no clutter between me and my customer. I may also tell my secretary or the operator to hold all calls for the next few minutes as I would not like to be disturbed. These actions cost me nothing but I believe they give me a lot in terms of building relationships with my customers. I need to send the message to my customer that he is important and I respect his time. There are many other such actions we can take.

Another simple step is to thank the customer for her business at the cash counter and hope you would see her again. Most people at cash counters do not even look up at the customer. In fact, most often I find myself thanking the cashier after my purchase – essentially for giving me the change due to me and letting me get away from the shop.

Customers want to feel understood

We want to feel understood. Any customer talks to a salesperson because he or she has a need that is to be satisfied. The customer has so much choice that often she is confused and not sure she is doing the right thing. She also fears that the salesperson’s job is to sell whatever they have and not necessarily what is best for her. A customer thus wants reassurance that she is dealing with a person who understands her needs and will recommend a solution that is best suited for her. The salesman is, in fact, like a doctor in this situation. The patient (customer) has a pain (need) and the doctor has to prescribe the right medicine (the product, solution) that will remove the cause of pain. What does a good doctor do? He sits the patient down, asks questions, listens patiently, looks at symptoms, understands the patient’s issues, does an examination and then writes out a prescription.

How would a patient feel if he tells a doctor he has a stomach ache and the doctor immediately writes out a prescription? He would feel uncomfortable and wonder how the doctor could give the right prescription when he has not even taken the trouble to understand the problem.

On the contrary, when a doctor asks questions and takes time to understand, the process itself makes the patient feel comfortable and very often half the pain seems to disappear! This is exactly how a customer feels when he needs to buy something or has a problem with a service rep.

The fact that the salesman is taking time to understand the customer instead of jumping to sell a product makes the customer comfortable and builds confidence in the salesperson. I find this is very relevant for service and complaint-handling departments where anxiety, anger and emotion levels are likely to be high. Customers want to be reassured that you are making the effort to understand the problem so that you are likely to give the right solution. This makes the customer comfortable.

Customers want to feel comfortable

This brings me to another need – we want to feel comfortable. We want to feel easy and not pressurised when dealing with others. As I see it, being comfortable is the end result of having other needs met. We can see from the above that if a customer feels respected, important and understood, she will be comfortable with the salesperson. When we are comfortable and at ease with the salesperson, we are happy and want to come back to the same person.

Make customers WANT to come back

Interestingly, a few simple steps would satisfy the above needs very easily. In fact, one simple step alone will largely satisfy the above needs well – being a good listener. Remember, we all have personal needs and simple actions can satisfy these needs and make us happy. It costs nothing really but there is a lot to gain. We all want to deal with people who make us happy. When a customer is happy, she wants to come back to the same store, bank, dealer or shop.

As Stew Leonard Sr., of the American Stew Leonard’s chain of supermarkets, said, “When a customer walks into my store he does not ask what I can do for Stew Leonard. He asks what Stew Leonard will do for me.” What Stew Leonard knew was that he had to make the customer happy. Happy enough to make the customer WANT to come back. That is the secret of building customer loyalty. Not very difficult is it?

The writer is Director, SDM Institute for Management Development, Mysore.

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