Lynchburg Business

“Just Browsing”: A Guide to Customer Service

Issue: February 2010 by Miranda Canady in Inside The Magazine, Retail

With the recent recession, companies have felt the pressure to enhance customer service. Now, more than ever, customers are viewed as valuable treasures instead of demanding product-users. Unfortunately, over-ambitious employees and aggressive tactics have left customers asking, “How much customer service is too much?” Are your good intentions really hurting your company? Lynchburg Business went out into the local community to ask both companies and consumers about their take on customer service.

Anne Gagong, owner of The Art Box, attributed her company’s successful customer service to, “hiring people who have a genuine interest in the products and letting their natural interest in the product flow into their relationship with the customers.”

Perhaps Susan Ward, a guide for About.com, summed it up best when she said, “Good customer service is all about bringing customers back and sending them away happy.”

The pursuit of customer loyalty is at an all-time high as many consumers are trading in their favorite brand name products and services for generic alternatives and do-it-yourself projects. According to effortlesshr.com, it costs five times as much to bring in a new customer as it does to keep an existing one.

In fact, customer loyalty is a valuable driving force behind word-of-mouth advertising, which not only cuts back on advertising costs, but is also extremely effective because people know and trust the source. A survey by Nielson marketing researchers revealed that word-of-mouth advertising was the most powerful determinant behind purchasing decisions of respondents, leading with 78 percent of the vote.

So where should companies draw the fine line between too much and too little customer service? I recently had a great experience at the Dancing Leaf Florist & Gallery in downtown Lynchburg. It was my first time in the store and I was politely greeted by a cheerful woman who dropped what she was doing to ask if I was looking for anything in particular. When I replied, “Just browsing, thanks.” She was quick to reply, “Let me know if there is anything I can help you with,” and thankfully, left me to do what I intended to do—browse.

After leisurely strolling through the store, I found myself enticed by the corner room full of jewelry. Jewelry high and low had me feeling excited and overwhelmed at the same time. I must have publicized my confused gaze because the lady who greeted me at the door promptly came over and showed me different items and told me about them. Without my prompting, she had read my body language and acted upon that by helping as best as she could. Her efforts were not in vain—I walked out of the store with a beautiful broach custom made by one of the workers, Joyce.

Abe Loper, Executive Director of the Young Professionals of Central Virginia, says he had a similar customer service experience recently at Bull Branch in Lynchburg.

“I took my parents to Bull Branch while they were in town for Thanksgiving,” he said. “I wasn’t feeling well, and when I told our server that I wouldn’t be ordering, he asked me if my stomach was upset. When I confirmed, he said he’d be right back. He returned with a glass of soda water with a touch of flavor, on the house.”

Unfortunately, not all experiences are that wonderful. Lynchburg resident Amanda Sandos walked out of a local car rental company recently after she says she was blatantly ignored.

“There were a couple of customers in front of me and only two men working the desk. Nobody looked at me or spoke to me,” she explained. “I waited and waited for them to get to me. Still, nobody acknowledged me at all. Then, a middle-aged gentleman walked in. After less than five minutes, the employee asked him if he was returning a car and promised someone would be right with him, while I remained apparently invisible. Was it because I am a woman? That was certainly the feeling I got. I chose to leave.”

Another consumer, who wishes to remain anonymous, regularly avoids going into stores where pushy sales employees interrupt and distract from her shopping experience.

“I hate going into stores where the workers follow you around like hawks and ask you a million questions,” this customer said. “It has gotten so bad at some stores that I don’t even bother going in anymore because I want to avoid the hassle.”

The truth is, if most people need help, they will ask. That is not to say that customers do not enjoy being greeted by employees upon entering their place of business; they just do not enjoy the hovering overkill that companies have adopted in a desperate response to the recession. Customers credited leaving a store because of over-the-top customer service or the lack thereof.  A good rule of thumb is to judge a customer’s responsiveness by their body language.

“Just browsing,” does not always mean “just browsing,” but, according to those we spoke to, it does mean that the customer is not interested in listening to an advertising soapbox.

1. Argue—remember, the customer is always right
2. Answer, “I do not know” to a customer without further effort to find an answer