It almost goes without saying that good customer service is essential to sustaining any business. No matter how wonderful a job you do of attracting new customers, you won’t be profitable for long unless you have a solid customer retention strategy in place &ndash and in action. It’s the actions that count &ndash not what you say you’ll do, or what the policy says. People will remember what you or your employees have done &ndash or not done.

One of the key components of an effective retention strategy is exceptional customer service. Not just good service, but memorable service. Today, consumers’ expectations are higher than ever and companies that fail to deliver, risk losing market share.

10 Tips for Delivering Good Customer Service.

1) Treat me like a somebody. It’s been years since that Midas muffler commercial aired, but the “I’m a somebody” phrase can still be heard from time to time. Why? Because regular customers expect (and deserve) to be remembered. As one woman summed it up, “You don’t need to remember my name, or what I order, but do acknowledge that I’ve been there before.”

One of the best examples I’ve ever seen of this is at my local coffee shop. One day I noticed that the young man behind the counter greeted some people by name and, even if he didn’t know their name, he knew what they usually ordered. As I waited for my tea (he’d already placed my ‘two milk on the side’ on the counter without me having said a word), I asked him why he said, “See you later” to some customers, “See you tomorrow” to others, yet always said, “Have a good week” to me. The smiling, friendly reply? “Because you only come in on Mondays and Fridays”. As I thanked him, I thought to myself, “Wow. He won’t be here long”. Unfortunately, I was right.

2) Be polite! Too frequently company representatives ask customers for file information without saying “Please” or even being polite. It is not acceptable for a service rep to simply bark out, “Account number?” And it is never acceptable for a service rep to insult a client.

Six weeks ago there was a problem with my home internet account &ndash which is with a phone carrier I have used my entire life (and, as you know, this kind of loyalty to a phone company is almost unheard of these days). In all that time, I have never been late with a bill payment to them. There is a long and ugly story here, but the short version is that a) the problem was on their end and b) before they realized where things had gone wrong, their rep was extremely rude. When I asked him to please change the way in which he was addressing me, he snarled, “Well whadya expect? If you’d pay your bills on time you wouldn’t have this problem.”

I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. In fact, if I’d just read this account (instead of being on the receiving end), I wouldn’t have believed the story. What’s worse is that although the company later apologized, their senior management seemed to feel that this was not an isolated incident.

A 2005 survey conducted by Schulich School of Business MBAs suggests that this kind of problem exists in over 30% of companies, and costs them hundreds of millions of dollars in lost customers (and revenues) each and every year. Don’t let your company end up one of these statistics.

3) Thank your customers &ndash like you mean it. When your employees conclude a transaction, they should thank the customer with a smile and a sincere “thank you for … completed by whatever is appropriate for your business”. Too often, customers received a rushed and barely civil “Thanks-Have-a-nice-day-Next”. With large purchases, the verbal greeting should be followed up with a hand-written card &ndash not just because it leads to increased referrals (which is does), but because it is the correct thing to do.

Oh, and by the way, the word “Sure” is no way to respond when a customer thanks you. To many people in many parts of the world, this is dismissive and suggests you don’t care. The correct phrase is “You’re welcome”.

4) Appearances do count! According got two independent pieces or research, nearly 90% of customers form an impression about how competent and reputable your company is based on what they see when they walk trough your doors.

Preserve me from auto-attendant hell. Customers are becoming increasingly annoyed and frustrated with having to sift through a multitude of options and press numerous buttons &ndash only to be told that the desired service can only be obtained through the company’s website. Worse is when the auto-attendant uses voice recognition &ndash but doesn’t ‘recognize’ your voice. People want to connect with human beings; they don’t want to listen to a long list of prompts. For hints on how to use auto-attendants effectively, please read “The top 5 new things people expect for good customer service” on our ReallyGreatInfo.com webiste.

5) Do what you say you will… when you say you will. The expression “Under promise, over deliver” may have become somewhat hackneyed through over use, but is still germane. One of the quickest ways to lose customer confidence is to not follow-through, or to be late delivering a service or product, without notifying the customer in advance, determining whether or not the delay will impact the customer and providing an alternate solution in the interim if necessary.

One of the best examples I ever experienced of a company doing it well happened with Toyota. There was a problem with my RAV4 and Toyota couldn’t repair it easily. I was driving a loaner, but had planned to go camping with my kids. It was our summer holiday and it had been planned for months. When Toyota couldn’t repair my vehicle in time, they rented an SUV for us to use &ndash without me having to ask. I have since purchased another vehicle from this dealership and recommended it to 6 others who have purchased from them. Coincidence? I think not.

6) Surprise the customer from the time to time. When it is possible to provide an extra level of service, do so. Whether it’s an unexpected complimentary dessert in a restaurant, or an upgrade that has not been requested, these special gestures go a long way towards engendering customer loyalty and to winning you new customers. It has long been known that on average, a dissatisfied customer will tell 10 - 16 others, but people who have had an unexpectedly good experience also recount their stories.

7) Provide “full” service. When Successories sends out its framed prints, it includes the hooks and a small levelling device. There’s a remote control toy vendor near me who includes the batteries. “My” gas station dispenses free coffee with gas on weekday mornings. A drive-through drycleaner in northern Ontario opens early and hands you the morning paper with your order. Small things, yes. Greatly appreciated? No question.

I spoke to each of my local retailers and learned that in each case, their sales &ndash and profits &ndash have enjoyed double digits increases since they introduced more comprehensive service. Think about what you can add to help make things easier for your customers. In some cases, by looking at what else it makes sense to sell, you can even add a new revenue stream while improving the perceived level of customer service provided.

Mea Culpa. When you have made a mistake, admit it and set things straight. When customers have a complaint &ndash listen, truly listen. Then apologize and take corrective action. In many instances, the very act of listening (without interrupting) can be enough to diffuse the situation and make the person feel worthy as a customer. Then ask the customer how they would like you to resolve the situation. In most instances, your client will come up with something reasonable &ndash and often less costly than a solution you might have proposed.

9) Listen to your customers. Conduct your own surveys and get feedback on what they like and don’t like - and take corrective action as required. Let customers know that their business is appreciated and that their opinions are important to you.

None of these suggestions takes a lot of time or money to implement, yet they can pay dividends in increased customer satisfaction and retention. The key, though, is to ensuring that employees understand the importance of their front-line role and get good training and supervision.

As a customer, I know what it’s like to be on the customers side of the counter. You want to turn over your hard earned money for goods or services. You are then confronted with attitude, rudeness and utter disregard for just how hard you have worked for your dollar. Either the service is slow and the quality of the goods are poor, or worse the company you are patronizing rigidly enforces poor policies for handling customer issues.

As a business owner I realize the cost of poor service. Poor service decreases impulse purchases, leads to a reduction in repeat business, causes lack of referrals and negatively impacts customer relationships. When you are trying to build a business in a competitive market each of these are critical to your success. In an environment where customers have a dozen or more purchase options it is imperative that great care be taken to build your business.

How are you doing at building your business with customer service? Consider how you would handle the following customer interactions:

(1) A customer purchased a $10 item and now wants to return it. Your policy is no refunds. This a customer who has shopped your establishment many times. Do you return the item or enforce the policy? If you must, gently remind the customer of your policy, but you should absolutely refund or exchange the product to the customers satisfaction.

(2) When customers enter you business are they greeted warmly or ignored? At the very least do you make eye contact and smile? A warm and hearty “Hello” will fit almost any environment. Do this with each customer. A smile would be the icing on the cake.

(3) Do your employees say “Thank You” and smile after each customer purchase? Or do they simply hand the customer their bagged item and say “next.” Thank You … Its just two little words, and only eight characters long. Just say it. It goes a long way to build goodwill and customer relationships. It gives the perception that you are nice and friendly. Don’t forget to smile.

(4) During customer interactions are you on the phone or talking with other employees? Or are you focused 100% on the customer? It is downright rude to be doing ANYTHING, other than focusing on your customer, during a transaction.

(5) A Customer comes into your establishment and is there incessantly reading product labels. Do you leave the customer there to fend for themselves or do you offer the customer your expert opinion on the products you offer. More often than not the customer will be left alone. Go help them. If they want to be left alone let them tell you so.

What do you think customers do when they encounter great customer service? They become advocates for you and help to build your business by referring others. They become loyal to you, completing like purchases exclusively at your establishment. Fantastic service is what makes customers want to shop with you despite a higher price or the inconvenience of distance. Even if you are providing a lesser quality product or service, fantastic customer service can help you compensate for it. It gives you an incredible, low cost competitive advantage.

To improve your customer’s experience, start by changing yourself. Change your attitude when handling customer issues. Be friendly and liberal versus stern when implementing policy. This may require you to convince yourself that you can afford great service. Do the math and discover that it will cost you less to take care of that customer now and build a life long patron. Set the example by regularly chatting with customers and enthusiastically pitching in to solve hard problems.

Next challenge your employees by asking them to step up their game. Catch them providing great service and provide some simple verbal recognition. Constantly bring up and talk about how important it is to set yourself apart with great service. Create a bulletin board in your employee only area, and post positive comments from customers - if a customer verbally tells you something great, type it up and post it on the board. For employees that just don’t get it try to understand why and help them with some training, coaching and counseling.

Starting with your next customer begin building that essential customer service foundation. Offer a friendly smile, a warm greeting, and a caring attitude. Engage in aimless small talk, genuinely go the extra mile and try to truly understand the other person.

Communication is one of the most important industries in the world. People have a need to talk, to get in touch with their friends and family, no matter where they are in the world. We started with letters sent with any individual traveling in that direction, which progressed to the postal system. With the advent of the Internet, we exchanged snail mail for email and later instant messengers

Somehow though, it just wasn’t enough. We needed to hear their voices not just read their words. With the help of great inventors, we progressed from the telephone to cellular phone to again utilizing the Internet to make calls.

Skype has been among the pioneers of this system. Voice over Internet Protocol, or VoIP as they call it, has been instrumental in bridging the distances between people. It means a lot to people to be able to actually greet their special someone happy birthday on that very special day without the exorbitant costs that land line or mobile telecommunications company charge per call.

Skype has been a wonderful service, much appreciated and enjoyed by everyone who prefers voice chat to email or messages. It is easy to use: simply download, sign up, tell your friends to do the same and you can talk with each other for free! Who could ask for more?

Skype, apparently though has become a little ambitious. After they were bought by Ebay, things seem to have begun to slide downhill. They’ve announced new paid services such as SkypeOut and SkypeIn. They are great ideas, for sure. This is why some of the Skype users who have been very happy with the free service agreed to pay the premium.

Unfortunately, while they may be expanding their products’ abilities to get new users, they have forgotten to take care of their existing subscribers. The service has deteriorated since I first signed up. Unfortunately, Skype doesn’t seem to care.

Since I didn’t want to kick up a fuss if there was a way for me to fix the problem myself, I checked out the Sykes home page again. I was happy to see that they had a help page with a trouble shooting guide. Unfortunately, even after following the various instructions and suggestions- it still wasn’t working properly.

Usually when that happens, I call the company to ask for further assistance. So I looked for a phone number where I could reach Skype’s customer service. I searched all over the page and didn’t find any number that I could call. The link marked “Contact Us” lead to a page that basically said before contacting them, I should read the help pages. No problem I had done that.

It now said that if I didn’t find the answer in their knowledge base I should contact their customer support. I now clicked on the link for that and ended up at an online ticketing system for complaints. Now, I’m glad they are taking down the complaints in black and white, and I do appreciate that it seems to be on a first in, first out basis. What upsets me is that absolutely nothing seems to be happening.

I told them how I was having some trouble with the service. I mentioned how more frequently it happens that the people I call can hear me but I can’t hear them in the middle of our conversation. I asked if they could please give me feedback on how to resolve the problem. After I filled out their form, I got their infamous acceptance message saying, “If your inquiry requires a response, we will get back to you within three days”. What the?! I thought every customer deserved to get a response, even if it’s just to get pointed to the right part of the forum!

Skype is so busy building up their new communication products that they’ve stopped communicating with their existing clients. They have obviously forgotten that great customer service is what will keep the numbers in their database up. If people don’t get the assistance they need, they will leave; especially now that the service of the product itself is deteriorating.

Are they now so big that they can’t be talked with? Is it too much to ask that they put in a few more people to take care of answering the support requests? Or have they already spread themselves so thin that they can’t afford to hire more people? No wonder the service is beginning to suck.

I truly don’t appreciate how impersonally Skype is handling customer service. I pay for SkypeOut, I got billed but to date, it still isn’t working properly. I sent Skype both a support request (from their site) and an email, to the email address of their billing team (the address of which by the way I did not find on their website but through searching the web for other Skype complaints). I still have no action from them. Talk about wasted money!

What amazes me is that Skype doesn’t even have “live chat” or some other similar help desk program so that we customers with concerns and who want to continue using Skype can talk with someone in Sykes who can help. Considering that Sykes is a communication company, I’d have thought that they would create one themselves. That little software for customer service is an absolute treasure!

I guess I shouldn’t be surprised, after all the site is obviously geared to attracting new users only. Skype seems to be interested in just making more and more money; and bringing in more users. They obviously don’t care if their subscribers leave because they get no assistance and maintenance services from them.

Cardinal rule of any business, Skype, is to take care of your customers. Your repeat business usually in the long run can make you more money than new subscribers will. It would do your business a lot of good if you would pay attention to your subscribers and give them their money’s worth. I know I’m disappointed in the service…..

Customer service is all about the customer. As business owners or employees, we have all at one time or another had to deal with an upset customer. What happens when the upset customer is us?

Being in business does not guarantee success. The last thing a business owner wants is to lose our business, so when something goes wrong and we are the customer, do we just accept it and walk away forever or do we seek satisfaction. Of course we often complain, but then again we probably would not remain a customer.

Here is a suggestion to be a satisfied customer more often. Know what you want that will make you happy before you complain. Here is an example.

Last week I bought a pie at a national grocery chain. It was on sale and when I went to eat it, it was the worst thing I ever tasted. I looked for my receipt to return it and noticed that the pie which was supposed to be $2.50 was charged to me for $4.79.

On the way to the store I decided that I would ask for a total refund and a new pie. When I went to the customer service desk, I told the guy working there what I expected for my trouble. He said wait a minute and went into the back office. When he came out he told me to go get a new pie.

As I was looking at the pies, I had a choice of another fruit pie ( the first was blueberry) or pumpkin or a key lime. The key lime was $3.00 more than the original pie, but I have eaten them before from that store and they are always good. I took the key lime pie back to the service desk, explained that I know that the key lime pies are good and the person asked if I would like a bag. He then handed me the cash refund and I left the store.

I will shop at that store again.

My point to this is that when we are the customer, we can most often get satisfaction in a bad situation by knowing what it is that we want that will make us want to come back. When we know what we want we simply have to ask for it. This gives the business person an opportunity to save the relationship and us a way to get what we need to be happy.

For the customer, it is not always easy for them to figure out what it is that would make them happy or satisfied. As the business owner it is a good idea to have suggestions ready and employees empowered to handle the situation.

As I have said before, all we need to know is what we want and how to ask for it. Remember it is a lot more costly to get new clients than it is to give them what they need to feel satisfied, at least in most cases.

Help desk have now become a core part of good business service and operation. The term itself is generally associated with the end user support center. However, the fundamental role it plays on a company’s service function is to bring multiple resources together to solve issues about the customer’s satisfaction. It is no longer limited to mean internal support within only the company but also external support groups.

In most companies, a help desk may consist of a single person with a phone number and a standard procedure of handling problems that come in. A help desk, for larger companies is a group of experts using a software that helps track the status of problems as well as other special softwares that analyze the problem. It is a place for centralized help within an enterprise to help the users of their products and services. It becomes the center in where customers can call to place orders, track shipments and get help with products.

Help desk softwares are aimed to improve user productivity in whatever line of business you are in. It is a source that provides a fast deployment process to enable immediate efficient and ample IT support solution. There exists a wide range of software programs one can choose from depending on specific business needs.

The most evident advantage of the use of a help desk software is increased customer satisfaction due to the reduction of customer downtime and support call numbers. It makes possible faster and more accurate responses to customers by solving new problems through proven solutions. It quickly identifies problem areas in products and services so that everyone knows exactly what is going on.

Help desk management lies at the heart of any successful help desk solution. Most programs offer extensive information and a free download test. This would help the user company evaluate whether a specific program specifically meets their needs.

A typical help desk software includes a consistent user interface from a web browser. This allows the user to easily navigate the entire software program. It also features the ability to assign a unique ID to each help desk inquiry. The creation and tracking of help desk problems by multiple staff personnel is made possible while related help desk issues appear when addressing specific functions.

Reporting would include such items as track issues by product, model number or versions while tracking support contracts, support times and generating release notes. It also specifies the time spent per inquiry and per help desk personnel reports. E-mail, live chat and automated phone follow-up contact is also possible. A call history information is formed when conversations between the help desk user and customer support are documented. Predefined scripts are usually integrated so that the same help desk support message is delivered regardless of the support person involved.

The ability of a user company to adopt those programs into their own operation will be of their best advantage. It is best to avoid overly cumbersome programs which clutter the process. A well-defined and suitable help desk program should benefit your customer as well as your business.

In banking and investing and insurance, many thousands of service-minded people enjoy client loyalty. Yet, most labour under a false basic assumption about why clients are loyal to them or their institution, rather than competitors. What really generates loyalty is warmth.

The dominant view of loyalty in financial services equates loyalty with simple continuity of service. “If they keep on dealing with you, that means they’re loyal.” This makes sense, but it lacks a basic understanding of what motivates people to be loyal.

This view also supposes that people become loyal to whomever best satisfies their service requirements. “If they can read statements that arrive on time, and find good numbers in them, then you just need be nice and keep it up.” This makes sense, too. But does loyalty come simply from satisfying requirements and smiling?

By conventional wisdom, good investment performance and reliable admin are not quite enough from investment advisors or financial planners. Indeed, they strive to have impressive diplomas and professional certifications, to dress for success, and to express clever perspectives. This makes sense, too. Yet, most of their clients simply assume the diplomas and certifications. People want something more.

connectedness the edge

The conventional wisdom lacks edge. Here’s that edge: connectedness &ndash mutual connection with the individual or institution. Some have it and don’t know how or why. Some credit their office d

It’s time to beat the old bad customer service drum again. I know, I’m sick of beating the drum, too, but as long as bad customer service runs rampant through so many businesses I feel it is my entrepreneurial duty to bring it to your attention. So grab a pew and prepare to listen to the sermon I’ve preached before: bad customer service is the bane of business. If the Almighty smote down every business that dispenses bad customer service, the world would be a much friendlier, albeit much sparser place. Consider a world without malls and fast food joints… would it really be so bad?

What puzzles me most is if bad customer service is such a death knell for business, why do so many businesses allow it to go on? Don’t they read my column, for Pete’s sake? I think the problem is that most bad customer service is doled out (or at least condoned) by business owners and managers who have ceased caring what their customers think. When you stop caring what your customers think it’s time to close the doors. Go find a day job. You’ll make someone a wonderfully disgruntled employee.

My latest parable of lousy customer service was actually experienced by my better half while attempting to buy my daughter a pair of basketball shoes. I won’t mention the name of the sporting goods chain store in which the bad customer service took place, but I will tell you that its name is similar to the sound a frog with hiccups might make.

As my wife waited for someone to assit, the four or five teenagers who had been charged with manning the store stood in a clump at the cash register giggling and flirting with one another as if they were at the prom instead of at work.

When my wife pointed out this fact, one of the employees, a cheeky lass of 16 or so, put her hands on her hips and said, “How rude!” The males in the group didn’t react at all. They were too busy arguing over who could take a break so they could chase other cheeky lasses about the mall.

Needless to say my lovely bride, who has the ability to instill fear into the hearts of even the most worthless employees, left the gaggle of giggling teen idiots standing with their mouths open in disbelief. How dare a customer tell them to do that with a pair of basketball shoes?

As much as I bemoan bad customer service I celebrate good customer service. It should be applauded and the purveyor of said good customer service should be rewarded for actually delivering satisfaction to the customer, above and beyond the call of duty.

So let me tell you the story of my new hero, Ken. I won’t tell you the name of the store in which Ken works, but let’s just say they started out selling radios in a shack somewhere long, long ago.

I first met Ken when I went into the store to buy a mixing board for my business that records audio products for the Web. In a nutshell, you plug microphones into the mixing board then connect it to the computer and you can record audio directly to digital format. Totally beside the point of this article, but I didn’t want you thinking that I was purchasing non-manly cooking utensils.

When I got the mixer installed it didn’t work. So I boxed it up and headed back to the store to return it. When I told Ken my problem he didn’t just grunt and give me my money back as so many bad customer service reps would do. Instead he asked, “Do you mind if I try it?”

“Knock yourself out,” was my reply, confident that if I couldn’t get it to work, neither could Ken. Ken took the mixer out of the box and went about hooking it up to one of the computers on display. He started pulling power cords and cables off the display racks and ripping them open and plugging them in. He tore open a new microphone and an adapter and kept going until he had the mixer hooked up and working. Yes, I said working. It turns out the mixer was fine. I just had the wrong power adapter.

Ken could have just given me my money back and been done with me. Instead he spent 15 minutes and opened a number of other packages that I was under no obligation to buy just to help me get the thing working.

I was so impressed that I not only kept the mixing board, I also bought another $50 worth of products. And the next time I need anything electronic guess where I will buy it? Even if it costs twice as much, I’ll buy it from Ken.

Now here’s the moral of the story: if you are a business owner who has a gaggle of teenagers in charge of customer service at your store you would be better off replacing them with wild monkeys.

At least monkeys can be trained.

Last week I made an early morning trip to a seminar/book promo breakfast to promote my web site. After putting out flyers all over the place I took a moment to step in to the facility and caught a few moments of a morning with Jack Welch, the former CEO of GE.

As I stepped through the door, a question and answer session was in progress. A woman stepped up to the microphone and asked “Is the customer always right?”

Jack smiled and said, “You might not think so, and they may believe so, but if you don’t make it so, you’re dead!”

Jack, that is a pretty strong consequence. Dead. But let’s face it. Who will come to do business with you again after you argue with them about their dissatisfaction? I think most people will just go somewhere else.

Isn’t is just common sense that we let our customer complain and then make it right? Well for the business owner, we usually just grin and say ” what would it take to make you happy today?” but what about our employees?

If we have not taken the time to train our employees how to deal with an unhappy customer, how will they react when one attacks them with ” the food was cold and tasted like crap!” or “I only had it for three days and the wheel fell off!”

It is important that as part of training any employee who has contact with the customer they have training on dealing with complaints as well as how to work the register or take the order. As a business owner you probably have already thought of that. Is there a piece of this puzzle missing?

The missing piece might be empowerment. The employee can be trained how to be calm and not take complaints personally. But what if they are not empowered to take action and correct the problem immediately themselves? What if you have instructed them to get you if there is a problem and you are on your way to the bank to make a deposit?

In most cases an angry consumer will not wait for you to return.

This would mean that if your employee is not empowered to make a correction or offer a compromise to make the customer happy, you would lose their business forever. How much does it cost to get a new customer? How much does it cost to make them happy when they are dissatisfied? The difference on paper is staggering.

Therefore, as part of the training of a new employee, it should be taught what is possible to do to make a customer happy when they are complaining. A quick response to a problem is appreciated almost more than the actual solution in most cases.

You see in life, we are all customers at some time or other, and I don’t know about you, but when I am an upset customer, I am always right!

If you are up to your ears in a stressful situation, it becomes difficult to think clearly. Sometimes, it is best to walk away from a problem, and think about it, rather than try to solve it with an instant solution.

My grandfather used to say: “Even the court jester can teach us something useful.” This saying goes much deeper in meaning and applies to many things - from a Yoga class, to not taking life too seriously, and to the unfortunate way customer feedback is commonly handled by the business world.

As a customer of any service or product - how do you feel when your Email is ignored, your voice mail message is never answered, and you don’t get any feedback or concern, at all, from customer service? We all feel the same &ndash nobody likes to be ignored. The shame of all this is that customer service is getting worse on a global scale.

Knowing this, we should take the time to listen when someone has taken the time to give us a constructive suggestion. When you do acknowledge a suggestion and consider, implement, or try it, you could possibly create a bond for life.

Here is a little story about how listening can pay off. Years ago, I was working at a health club and had a dilemma. I had a personal training client with a weight control problem, but I couldn’t figure out what the problem was.

She was exercising, eating the right things, following a new healthy diet, taking Yoga classes, and had made a 30 day turn around in lifestyle, with no results to measure.

I brainstormed with the health club owner with no real success, but we were interrupted by someone who said that I should have my client log everything she eats and drinks.

Well, I took the suggestion and ran with it. I discovered my client was drinking three Cokes a day. She didn’t equate Coke with sugar grams, and didn’t think it was important enough to mention.

After that, she lost five pounds a month, on average, for the next twelve months. That’s an optimum 60 pound weight loss in a year. This particular client kept the weight off.

The person who made that suggestion is still a dear friend to this day. Needless to say, I have every personal training client log their meals, and drinks - just to be certain.

In summary, it doesn’t take a “rocket scientist” to listen to customer feedback, or a colleague’s suggestions; but all of us, no matter how important we think we are, must be willing to sit back and listen to constructive advice. This will be the difference between managers of businesses that flourish and those that fail in the twenty-first century.

Do many of us realize that we are working an unpaid part time job for the grocery stores and some home appliance stores? We are ringing up our own goods, are not getting any price discount for doing so and are saving these retailers money.

Each self-serve lane contains two to three self-serve scanners. Retailers have an average of two to four self-serve lanes. Retailers are saving each store an average of four to eight cashiers’ salaries per store. One attendant is assigned to these self-service machines. Hypothetically, if stores are paying full time cashiers $7 per hour, they are now saving $14,000 annually in wage expenses for each cashier that they do not have to hire. Multiplied by four to eight cashiers, each store saves $56,000 to $112,000 per year on wage expenses. This simple calculation does not even count other benefits that companies pay to their cashiers, such as healthcare, vacation pay, sick pay, 401(k), pension benefits and tuition assistance.

Are these savings passed on to the consumer? Nope!

Why should we work an unpaid part time job for the grocery industry?

1. Self-serve scanning machines are not always user-friendly

When grocery bags get filled up and you have nowhere else to put your groceries, the machine will say something like “Please place your item back in bag” and not even let you know what the problem is. The machine treats you like you’re an imbecile. The machine is wasting your time while an attendant has to correct the problem.

2. Self-serve scanning machines do not always scan every bar code.

Some of the machines do not scan deposit bottle return slips, which requires an attendant to manually scan the deposit slips. If there is other merchandise that the machine will not scan, an attendant also has to manually override the system, which is consuming more time for the customer.

3. Self-serve scanners cannot correct price variations.

If an item should scan at a certain price, but the store’s system scans the item at a different price, an attendant has to manually override the scanner to give the consumer the correct price.

4. Risks of alienating senior citizens

If self-scanners are challenging for younger people, imagine how intimidating the machines must be for seniors. Sometimes, perception and not reality can dictate a retailer’s success. If seniors perceive that cashier-scanning is going to be phased out by self-scanning, seniors may take their business where the human touch is still being utilized.

5. Gas stations offer a price break for self-serve

Although full-serve gas stations are becoming more rare, those stations that still offer full-service and self-service combinations offer price breaks to those customers who pump their own gasoline. If gas stations can offer a price break to customers who pump their own gasoline, why can’t grocery stores offer a price break to customers who ring up their own goods?

6. Impersonal aspect could dissuade customers

Many customers go to the same store, restaurant or tavern because people who work at the establishment remember them. Remember “Norm” from Cheers? They want to go “where everybody knows their name…” A U-Scan Machine is not going to know you from Adam.

7. Self-scanning is currently not set up to handle large amounts of goods.

Currently, U-Scan machines are set up to handle about fifteen items or less, which is fine with the light shopper. What happens with customers who are purchasing over fifteen items? Are the larger-quantity purchasers being rewarded by not having to scan their own goods? Why do shoppers with fifteen items or less have the opportunity to do voluntary part time work for retailers? Is it a case of if customers purchase enough groceries, they don’t have to work for the store today?

Should this concept be called self-scan or self-scam? Fortunately, ringing up one’s own goods is still optional. Yes, it is still optional to do part time unpaid work for a retailer in which you are patronizing. Customers are doing the retailers a favor by purchasing goods at their stores. Is this how the customers are being rewarded? What will be next? Will customers go into a restaurant, order their food, be expected to prepare the food and pay the same price as if someone else had prepared the meal?