Dr David Cliff examines the value of courtesy in business practice and the impact it has on customer loyalty and the bottom line.
The adage that “courtesy costs nothing” was coined at a time when we still had notions of gentler social contact, a time when words like “etiquette” were still in common usage and its rules practiced. These days however, we’ve become more distant, more ‘transactional’ through the use of technologies and correspondingly, many people have become socially de-skilled, failing to appreciate the importance of courtesy.
Employers often talk about younger staff members in particular, who seem to lack the common courtesies of a telephone call, seeking face-toface contact etc, preferring instead to fire off the odd email that is purely functional, rather than has anything to do with the relationship with the customer in mind.
Sure, the box is ‘ticked,’ but such practices do little to enhance the relationship between customer and supplier, which is crucial to customer satisfaction and lifetime customer values to an organisation. Customer relations has become for many, a templated, scripted exercise born of the overuse of technologies that have reduced the quality of social skills in people. As psychologist and philosopher Eric Fromm, stated as far back as the 1970’s, social skills are not innate in humans, they must be practised and quickly atrophy when unused.
Courtesy is about maintaining attentiveness to the fact that a business relationship is more than the functional transaction ensuring the supply of goods and services for legal tender. It works on the basis that these exchanges are artefacts of human emotions and representative of the desired relational content of the players lives, at least in part. Every action has a meaning and purpose that transcends the behaviour itself.
Ringing a customer occasionally, a call being truly based on human interest, rather than sorting gripes, or do you want to upsell to them, is quickly discerned by customers. They can tell the difference between suppliers with whom they have a relationship and those who are simply there to functionally service them. Some customers, of course have the same mindset and so business relationships often take place on an entirely mechanistic, ‘bat for bat’ technological exchange basis. Such transactions require careful mindset adjustment by those involved as those who seek meaning in their business relationships can easily find themselves disappointed by such processes.
Getting to know our customers and understanding how they like services delivered requires both automated and human systems to encompass the value of choice and the idiosyncratic nature of people. Most of all, however, it requires real human interest. Checking in, acknowledging any difficulties, addressing these, and even the odd genuine ‘how are you?’ communication, are part and parcel of providing some element of connection and maintenance of a relationship that exists.
Every customer touch point needs to be handled sensitively, respectfully, with high levels of communication and attentiveness to the fact that somebody has placed their faith in you and your organisation.
Courtesy is a business practice that is fundamental between customer and supplier, workplace relationships and an absolute in terms of quality leadership practice. There’s a Zen to it that needs to be thought through. It’s something that acknowledges the identity and value of each and every customer in a world that constantly seeks to unitise people to fit scale up models.
This is why at Gedanken, we’ve enhanced the personalisation agenda amongst our service offerings. It’s easy to do, we’re not that big but, it’s important that we observe our fundamental relationship maxim which is “keeping the humanity in a busy world”. This does not mean that we’re not consummately efficient, rather we recognise there are humans on the receiving end, and we need to think carefully about their experience of us and the journey we take them on.
It’s often a subject that comes out in coaching, it may not use the word courtesy, but it comes out in other “code” such as customer satisfaction or even the grizzles that occur around getting paid or the customers expectation of added value. Yes, courtesy, and the need for it is coded in all sorts of ways and the wise entrepreneur recognises this.
www.gedanken.co.uk
