Small businesses, now 28 million strong across America, face challenges exacerbated during the holiday season: seasonal hiring, tight labor markets, discount pricing, social media strategy, and small business Saturday marketing promotions.
Often these issues take precedence over customer service. But I find that the small business leaders who are the most successful against their larger competitors ask empowering questions that set them up for success all year long. For example, “What is the one thing we can do immediately to encourage customers to return again and again?”
The single most effective–and underutilized–customer service strategy is one that you can adopt today. It’s free and, while its used by some of the largest and most admired brands, its much easier for small businesses to implement consistently.
I introduced the concept in this column and video on The Apple Store’s secret to insanely great customer service. Apple adapted the program from The Ritz-Carlton, a brand that knows a few things about 5-star service. Since my original article I’ve heard from retailers, consumer product companies, hospitals, wineries, and other businesses that have adopted the technique. I’ve been told that even legal marijuana dispensaries are catching on. One bills itself as “Like the Apple Store, but for weed.” If you have customers, the steps of service will work for you.
The strategy works like this. Every employee is trained to walk each and every customer through steps that will ensure an exceptional customer experience. The number of steps range from three at The Ritz-Carlton to six at UCLA and Stanford hospitals. At Apple, the steps are:
Approach with a warm welcome
Probe politely to understand the customer’s needs
Present a solution for the customer to take home today
Listen for expressed and unexpressed wishes
End with a fond farewell and an invitation to return
The steps can be adapted to meet the unique needs of the business, but steps one and five must remain: warm welcome and invitation to return. The first seconds of a customer interaction and the conclusion, the “farewell” are critical. How a customer feels at the end of an interaction is highly correlated with their likelihood to recommend the business to a friend. The steps that fit into an acronym, like A-P-P-L-E, are more likely to be remembered.
Recently I interviewed Dr. David Feinberg, who transformed patient satisfaction at UCLA Health with steps of service. Upon starting a new CEO position at Geisinger Health in Pennsylvania, he asked his staff to research and find the best model to improve patient-customer satisfaction. The team searched high and low and came back with the steps he had created for UCLA. No program was more effective.
Here’s the best part for small businesses. The brands who have successfully adopted the formula have thousands of employees. The strategy is effective, but only when every employee is coached often and consistently. Large companies know the value of teaching steps and do the best they can, but it’s simply harder to train 40,000 people than it is to train a staff of 10.
If you own a small business and you are not training your staff to follow the steps of service, you are missing out on the single best, free and effective strategy you can start today to build loyal customers all year long.