Customer Experience Starts with Customer Courtesy

The way you make a customer feel about you and your business or the company you work for determines if they would buy from you. We really cannot do business without the right impression. Customer courtesy is a vital component of customer experience and a determinant of customer satisfaction. It is the respect you accord customers as recognition of their value to your business. Many businesses display beautifully worded and framed service charters but act contrary because they lack the knowledge of customer courtesy and its benefit to their business or just choose to be non-chalant. Regardless of what side of the coin a business belongs to, customer experience stands a huge chance of being distasteful without customer courtesy. The common practice in non-customercentric firms is that the service charter remains the dream of management while the employees do as they please.

Right from the very moment customers start seeking a business to patronize in your niche, or get attracted to your marketing or advert to the point that they seek to know more, your customer courtesy journey begins. Many businesses seldom respond to emails and calls, and those who do, take forever. Need we talk about those who put out emails or phone numbers that don’t exist? Don’t be alarmed,  some do. For some other businesses, they lose out when the customers visit their business area (online or onsite) or communicate with their employees. Many businesses communicate their lack of customer courtesy right from the entrance to their business areas. Their uncourteous security men at the gate talk to customers rudely and lock some outside because they have not been bribed to gain entrance. Businesses that lack customer courtesy lose patronage before even getting an opportunity to sell; the painful part of it all is: they don’t know they have lost customers.

Customer courtesy is largely impacted upon by business and societal culture. Societal culture plays a greater role because in it, management and employees are hewn. It takes a powerful and consistent business culture to overcome societal culture. A corrupt society will most likely produce a large number of corrupt businesses, and corrupt businesses have no place for customer courtesy; if it exists, it must be eye service.

The road to customer satisfaction and ultimately, customer loyalty is better traveled by customer courtesy. It helps customers loose their guard and makes the attainment of a positive moment of truth easier. .  It appeals to a customer’s esteem and tells them you value them. A customer who has been treated well is more likely to buy than one who was treated badly. Customer courtesy can be in the form of symbols, attitude or speech, and it differs from business to business even though some generic customer courtesies, like greeting apply to all businesses. The first step is: knowing who your customers are.

If you are wondering how to implement this in your business or your job role, contact customercentrix and we’ll gladly walk you through the process.