One of the biggest problems entertainment companies have as they grow is teaching employees about customer service.
Companies should always have a very well formulated customer service policy. There should be stringent rules that cannot be bent or broken. But there still must be sufficient room for flexibility so every customer can be attended to given the existing circumstances. A policy that is absolutely inflexible won’t work as it would not account for unforeseen circumstances. However, each time something unforeseen comes up, it should be added to the customer service manual so there is an exact plan when something happens the next time.
Regardless of the type of policy companies have, customer service has more to do with employees than the higher echelons of an organization. The difficult part about our business is that so many employees are seasonal and it’s difficult to teach them everything quickly. This is one of the reasons that a good policy manual is a must. Most owners concentrate on safety and procedure manuals and obviously safety always comes first, but a good customer service manual can only help to build your business.
The easies way to build your customer service policy manual is to start listing issues that you’ve had over the years. Get on some of the forums or Facebook groups to see what kind of other issues are having. And then start documenting your company customer service policy for this type of issue.
For instance:
- How do you handle the client that tells you upon pickup that a piece of equipment wasn’t working properly?
- How should it be handled when a client disputes the pick up time?
- What should be done when a dog is in the set up area?
These are just simple issues and every one should be written in a policy manual and many times should be part of the contract, but if your pick up/delivery person have no idea of how to handle the problem, then you can end up with a lot of problems down the road.
Employee meetings are always good for this. When you encounter new customer service issues, or your employees do, then it’s good for everyone involved to talk over what happened. Your employees may see customer service problems that you don’t, and rarely will mention anything unless they are in an atmosphere where it is easy to share ideas. Once you have discussed everything, then add all new customer service issues to the manual.
These simple things can go a long way in helping you retain clients AND help you keep control of your business. We all know the customer really isn’t always right. The goal is to make sure he feels good though, with the outcome of any possible problems while you feel good about protecting your company.
