A renowned radio personality recently wrote an article bemoaning the countless incidents of lack of etiquette that she has variously been subjected to by retailers of one commodity or the other in places as widely varied as supermarkets, select stores and eateries.
Like Ciku, (yes, she of the ‘busted’ fame) we’ve all gone through similar experiences. An otherwise amicable waitress ruins your lunch - and by extension your entire day - when she delivers your soup dessert complete with a fly floating right in the middle. The same scene always plays itself out. The waitress will brazenly refuse to serve you another bowl of soup for reasons best known to her.
A more familiar episode is that of the annoying bar waiter who in his haste to take your order, ends up serving you a drink in a stained or cracked glass. Never mind, in the process the lousy dude completely forgets to clear let alone wiping your table!
The long and the short of Ciku’s beef is that ours is a society where customer service matters little. A society where evidently, the tired cliché, ‘the customer is always right’, has no place.
Its obvious we’ve gotten it all wrong. Many SMEs today attach undue importance to the ownership of flashy brand name designs and setting up of colourful websites (which quickly become dormant and outdated). All in an effort to cut a niche within their respective industries, without factoring their most appreciable assets, people - their customers.
While the significance of an authentic brand name can’t be overemphasized, a brand is only as good as the public’s perception of the human face behind it. Put differently, the image you cut across is your ‘real’ brand.
Conventional wisdom has it that for most business enterprises the front office should adequately serve the purpose of creating a positive and lasting first impression to would-be customers. Failure on the part of the front office staff to strike a positive cord in the client’s eyes automatically translates to a flop as far as the brand is concerned.
It’s for the same reason that a Japanese robotics software company is developing software that will ensure that employees wear warm smiles while helping customers. According to an article published in the March 7th 2009 issue of The Economist magazine, Omron Corporation will soon start selling a “Smile measurement” system that will alert managers - in real time, if desired - when a cashier fails to muster an adequate grin! Using computers to measure smile? As absurd as it sounds, thats just how seriously some companies consider customer service.
So what’s in a brand? Nothing and everything! The popularity of any brand lies more on the persona of the marketer than in the brand per se. From the roadside ‘mama mboga’ who intently engages you in jovial chitchat every evening on your way home to the unsmiling news anchor who dutifully sums up your day with the late night news bulletin, you wont be hard-pressed to decipher the underlying intonations and attitudes that inevitably translates to your overall perception of the brand in question (if at all the grocery vendor qualifies in this category as well).
Perhaps nobody puts better than writer Mike Merill. In his best-selling motivational business handbook, Dare to Lead, he writes: “The things that are important to you might not be to your customers. If you don’t stop to find out what your customers really want, you’re in danger of making products customers aren’t interested in.” Of course, rolling out a brand that customers are ill at ease to identify with would be worse.
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