Play Meter

FROM THE EDITOR Have you had your service today? I Valerie Cognevich Editor PLAY METER was reading a promotional piece for the Pizza Expo when one particular seminar caught my eye: "The Customer's Point of View is the Only Point of View." The session is described as "all about listening, understanding needs, flexibility, and exceeding expectations so our customers will want to come back-and will tell their friends. The speaker inspires and motivates people to bridge the service quality gap in their organization through real-world examples." This got me thinking of my own recent examples of service. I can't count the number of times I've watched sales people carry on personal phone conversations or talked among themselves like I was nothing more than a bother to their social life. I recently went to buy drapes for my dining room . While I was obviously in need of help , two sales ladies chatted about their kids, husbands, and when they were due to go on break. Another sales lady was busy helping two people at one time, yet being pleasant and patient. As soon as she finished with them, she smiled and asked me if I needed help. She stayed with me, answering questions, walking from display to display, and finally ringing up my $400 sale . The other two clerks, also working on commission 0 asked) , were still chatting when I left. I glanced back to see "my sales lady" approaching a customer who had been waiting. I'll be buying more drapes when my living room is finished , and you can be sure I'll ask for Laverne next time. This is no isolated incident. When did we begin to settle for such shabby treatment? We seem to accept it because we 've got choices about where to buy and , quite frankly, we've got better things to do than get into a hassle with a sales person. How about the store with 20 checkout lines, but only two are open? I've avoided stores because of this. I'd rather spend a little more down the street because they treat me like they care that I'm there. And while I'm at it, would someone please explain to me why businesses keep one side of their double glass doors locked? Did you notice that the title of the seminar was not "The Customer is Always Right"? Customers are not always right. As a business owner, you must know when to fight for your rights. It's not so much how customers 8 are treated, it's how they perceive they are treated that counts. "It's the rules" or "We always do it like that" doesn't hold much weight with an irate customer. The rule should be to "satisfy the customer." There are very few reasons to let a customer stay angry. My daughter took her car to a place to have her headliner replaced and windows tinted. When she picked up her car it was filthy, with pieces of stuff all over the front seat. The headliner was not done right and the windows had bubbles in them. The response to her anger: "Gee, it happens." They were only convinced to make it right when my 6' 5" , 400 lb. husband "asked" them to. Obviously, no one else in our family went there for anything nor did we recommend it to anyone else. Let's see, that was three other cars for us and my father-in-law's truck with badly sagging headliners, one of my husband's friends, and my sister-in-law who needed windows tinted. That's at least six customers-plus any others we dissuaded from going there. I wonder if they're still in business. Our industry has often been described as a service industry. The reasons are obvious. Operators place games in locations and must keep the location happy by m a king sure the games work and are rotated occasionally and that the records are changed regularly. But as Rich Holley points out in his article in this issue, no matter how good your service is, you'd better keep records. The location may not perceive your service as being quite as good as it really is. Manufacturers sometimes forget about keeping customers happy when they have a hot game. Suddenly they don't need to take phone calls or try to make their customers happy. After all, the distributor n eeds that game for all of his customers. But what happens when the company introduces a not-sohot game? Distributors aren't going to forget the way they were treated before; they'll think twice about buying mediocre games. A grocery store commercial features an older worker who says, "You can buy a can of beans anywhere. But when you come into my store, I'll package it better than anyone else." The same can be said about games. Anyone can sell a game or place a game in a location. However, it's what kind of service you offer after the sale that really counts. Take a step back from your business and pretend you are one of your customers. If you can be really critical and truthful, you may be surprised. Make a few ne cessary changes and your customers may be surprised. Either way, it's worth the effort. D MARCH 1994