KEY POINTS:
How do a pair of ballet shoes in a "blokey" vehicle servicing centre help maintain high customer service levels in an industry which, arguably, can offer either the best or the worst of customer service?
Coutts Cars in Newmarket sells and services brand new Mercedes-Benz cars and parts.
Mercedes-Benz is a high-end brand and is understandably one company that's always looking to set the standard when it comes to customer service.
Service manager Bryan Parris will tell you that each of his staff members keeps a small pair of silver "charm" ballet shoes - whether on a keyring, computer terminal or on their desk - as a constant reminder to always "put yourself in the customer's shoes".
"Buying a new car is a feelgood experience. It's an exciting, happy moment. But by the time the customer gets to my servicing department, it has turned negative. They either don't like being there spending money on a service they don't want, or they're there for mechanical repair.
"It's a bit like going to the dentist for some customers; that's why we've got to go a lot further when it comes to customer service."
The managing director of the country's largest customer service training organisation KiwiHost New Zealand, Simon Nikoloff, says the business of selling and servicing new cars is an interesting case study on the relationship/transaction gap between companies and their customers.
A recent survey of more than 2660 companies in the United States and Europe found that once the sale is made - regardless of industry - the salesperson's interest has peaked and drops away sharply, but at the same time, the customer's interest is only really starting to build.
In the study The Five Most Dangerous Issues Facing Sales Directors Today, and How to Guarantee a Permanent Improvement in Sales Results by The Sales Activator and Nightingale Conant, the relationship gap was identified as a significant barrier to sales growth.
"Customers that took months to win are ultimately lost because there was a lack of interest from their supplier," the study found.
Nikoloff says Coutts Cars' charm ballet shoes go to the heart of addressing the problem because they act as a powerful customer service awareness trigger for staff.
"A good way to help employee engagement in your business is awareness, because awareness sharpens behaviour. What can you do, at the point where your salesperson's interest is waning, to help them re-engage with the customer now that the initial excitement of the sale is over?"
At Coutts Cars, the company's servicing department puts a lot of energy into maintaining staff awareness of customer service, including:
* Ongoing customer service training.
* Customer service software and systems that track the whole process.
* Customer service triggers, such as the ballet shoes.
* Staff incentives, targets and performance measurement.
* Customer service questionnaires for every single transaction.
* Personal responsibility - each staff member is empowered to act to resolve a problem.
* Regular customer service meetings, where role-playing scenarios are acted out.
Nikoloff says that for those in a business in which follow-up isn't needed or desired, it's a case of establishing natural closure.
"Words such as 'thank you', 'goodbye', 'please call again' and 'enjoy' should be used to bring the transaction to a close, so that the customer does not feel that she's simply been dismissed and forgotten about, now that you've got her money.
"Once the transaction is concluded, you no longer have an opportunity to correct anything that may have gone wrong. "They say first impressions count, and they do, but in the KiwiHost experience - having trained more than 30,000 companies over the last 17 years - it's the last impression which forms the lasting impression"
* Colin Kennedy is an Auckland-based copywriter, whose clients include KiwiHost.