Make yourself and your products or services easy to gain access to.
Whether it’s online or through real locations simplicity of access is the key. Make sure your stock levels are well managed and matched to demand. Being out of stock is a sin. When it comes to online access test to web pages with new eyes or first time users to ensure the novice buyer is able to intuitively make a purchase. A great example of what not to do is Optus Australia… what a mess, must cost them a fortune in customer service calls/support inquiries. They have one of the worst web pages I have seen… see if you can link an account to your online access. They even stated you could pat with Paypal only to advise that actually for my prepaid wireless service they had changed policy and I couldn’t. One problem is packaging terms used in instructions don’t match online options, inconsistency in messages creates massive confusion.
Select positive and friendly staff who see serving customers as a pleasure.
You must train and train your staff to be helpful and friendly at all times with customers regardless of their own personal difficulties. I have been in three businesses recently one with a grumpy waitress, one with a stressed and defensive supervisor and one with a very helpful and pleasant sales assistant. One business will see me back I’m a loss to the other two… oh and so will my friends be.
Competence, speed and responsiveness from all organizational levels.
Again to mention Optus Australia. I was unable to get onto the net so I rang their support line. My 1st question is there a problem with the wireless tower… no sir, OK what do I do. Could you restart your computer… OK tic tic restart, no that did not help. OK sir could you uninstall the program and reinstall… 5 minutes later, OK? no still not working… are you sure there’s not a problem with the tower… I’ll check Sir… no the tower is operational. Can you go to your local Optus shop and test your modem… rather not what else… It could be a settings problem are you using Microsoft?… no Apple and it worked yesterday. Can you please make sure its not your tower down… I’ll ring again sir… tic tic tic… Oh I sorry Sir yes there is actually a problem with the tower technical had not advised us… why not… we wait till a customer has a problem to investigate sir… so I’m an unpaid consultant and I’ve just spent 28 minutes of time and its cost me about $21.00 to call you.
So the final point get pertinent operational information to your customer interface.
Personal attention: don’t hide behind automated telephone services.
How many times have your seen the notice “online help not available”. How many answering machines and punch in the numbers systems have driven you crazy… people deal with people not machines no matter how good you think they are. If you are going to provide self-help tools or support make sure they are foolproof, easy, easy, easy and reliable. Supermarkets nowadays not only provide shoppers with a range of trolleys and baskets one I was in the other day had self-checkout, wow it was quick easy and effective.
Number Five… perhaps you could tell me by way of a comment… sorry 
I like this quote by Steve Tobak “The only thing more powerful than delivering a great product is saying you’re going to deliver a great product and then doing it.” So perhaps five is tell the world what you will do and then make sure you do it!
Ric (orglearn) **Link for direct page viewers return to main career success blog to check out other posts!
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