Marketing Solutions Blog
The Customer Pays the Wages
November 4th, 2009 | 1 Comment“It is not the employer who pays the wages. Employers only handle the money.
It is the customer who pays the wages.”
Henry Ford
As a native of Detroit, I was brought up to revere Henry Ford. This is one of my favorite quotes from him and he’s absolutely right!
I believe that marketing encompasses every aspect of a business; from how a customer is greeted on the phone, to how the customer is billed or pays for their service to employee training. Advertising, public relations and branding are just part of a business’ marketing efforts.
As business owners and managers, we recognize how basic this concept is. But have we effectively conveyed this to our employees – specifically those employees that have direct contact with customers? For some employees, treating the customer courteously is second nature but for too many others it is a learned skill.
Two different experiences a colleague of mine and my husband encountered this week provide glaring examples of the impact of good customer service and the result of bad customer service. Both instances happened at two different locations of a national drug store chain.
After returning home from picking up his prescription, my husband Phil discovered that the pills in the bottle were a different color and size from the ones he normally receives. He called the pharmacy, was connected immediately to the pharmacist who discussed the change of manufacturers and assured my husband that it was indeed the same medication he was used to just a different look. After hanging up the phone, my husband commented on how impressed he was that he was able to get through to the pharmacist so quickly and how thoroughly the pharmacist had answered his question (how many of us have felt our concerns or questions were dismissed when talking to a medical professional?). Needless to say, he was very pleased with the personal level of customer service he experienced.
One of my colleagues went to a different location of the same drug store chain to pick up a prescription. She was the only one at the counter, no one was waiting in the drive-thru and no one was on the phone. After being ignored by the pharmacy tech behind the counter for way too long, she was finally asked for her last name – no may I help you, just what’s your last name. Once the tech found the prescription, she informed my colleague it would be $250 (that sound you hear is M.’s jaw dropping at the price which had up to then been $75). My colleague questioned the clerk as to whether or not her insurance had been applied, the clerk replied “that’s how much it is, do you want it or not?” Still stunned by the price, my co-worker paid for the bill and upon returning home called the drug store to ask again if her insurance had been applied to the prescription. Without asking her name, insurance company name or the name of the medication, the tech pronounced that if that was the cost then her insurance didn’t cover that medication. Undeterred, my colleague called her insurance company and was told that the pharmacy had in fact made a mistake and the prescription should have been only $75. One more trek to the drug store where the same rude pharmacy tech never made eye contact, huffed and puffed at having to fix the problem, never apologized for the mistake, and never thanked her for her business. My co-worker received poor customer service not once, not twice, but three different times at this one business at the hands of just one employee with very bad customer service skills.
Either the clerk at the second store didn’t know that the customer pays the wages or just didn’t care. Either way, it cost this drug store a customer. As marketers, we realize the expense involved in gaining just one new customer. Many of us have implemented customer loyalty or customer retention programs to prevent our customers from taking their business elsewhere. However, if you don’t have good customer service to begin with, those programs are like shutting the barn door after the horses are out. How many of us, have lost a customer due to poor customer service? Maybe it’s time to check our internal marketing resources to ensure that the first person our customers interact with is not our weakest link.
Laura,
Excellent illustration of how one person can ruin your business. The drug chain has probably spent millions on training and more millions on advertising…and it all comes down to that single point of failure.