Before we left Oklahoma, we used to eat at Moe's, a tex-mex fast food joint. It was pretty good. I especially liked the way they trained their staff to yell out "Welcome to Moe's!' every time someone walked in the front door. It made for a friendly environment where they recognized every customer on every visit.
As a sidebar, Moe's only played music featuring dead musicians in their restaurant. Interesting...
But when we moved to Colorado, we left Moe's behind. The next best thing is Qdoba, so we have become regulars at this fine-dining establishment. :-)
I don't really want to talk about the food. It's ok.
What amused me yesterday is the customer service situation I observed while making my purchase.
I'm standing at the counter waiting for the cashier to ring up my food.
There are three people at the counter and they are all talking... talking, talking, talking. And it had nothing to do with the customer they were serving.
I wanted to get some chips and salsa with my meal, so I asked politely.
I was ignored while they continued chatting.
I then asked if I could pay, and reminded them once more that I would like chips with my meal.
Still nothing. Their conversation must have been very important!
Finally, they recognized that I was standing there with a credit card in hand and decided to serve me.
I wasn't upset, but it reminded me how important it is to pay attention to your customer. When someone is standing at the cash register ready to hand over money, you should give them your undivided attention. Don't make them wait.
How can you apply this to your online business today?
By the way, I did get my chips and salsa. It was tasty. :-)
I think when it comes to online businesses, there's a higher expectation for response time - customers do expect a fast response time to e.g. technical problem tickets that they send, requests or enquiries etc. Sometimes, especially if it's a ticket, they expect the problem to be solved in minutes, which sometimes is impossible. In which case, there's a need to communicate with our customers that it will take longer than expected. But still, we must let our customers know, instead of taking days to fix the problem, with no acknowledgement of receipt of the ticket, and then informing them.