Smart Things to Know About Customers

This guide aims to offer a learning resource for the business person. It covers the subject of customer care in the business world.

Without customers a business is nothing. This might seem common sense but we have all encountered managers who do not fully understand the needs and expectations of their customers. Ros Jay in her clear and valuable book, Smart Customers, urges organisations to put the customer at the centre of their operations. She says the benefits of good customer service are that staff will be more motivated because they will receive praise, there will be greater customer retention and businesses will get more word-of-mouth recommendations. But to gain customer support, a business has to produce products or services that do what they claim to do and the systems that deliver those products and services have to be helpful and effective. Jay demands zero tolerance of any shortfall in customer standards but she qualifies this by saying standards must be achievable. Most ordinary people want to be liked and appreciated and customers are no different. Companies often fall down by not recognising the importance of the customer in every task they perform. A snotty reception, says Jay, can give a customer the impression that an organisation is snotty. And research shows that the majority of customers stop buying products and services from a company because of the attitude of their supplier. Smart managers will read this book. --Justin Hunt