Are you being served?

Customer service. It's almost like the Holy Grail of one's shopping experience: customer service, not products (most times), can make it or break it. I'd walk into a store and not get the product of my choice - but that won't deter me from coming back again if I get an informed opinion from the sales staff as to when that item (of my desire) is likely to be in-store; on the other hand, if I went to store where the customer service is the pits, I'd just leave summarily. who wants to get knocked around by bad attitude? Even if the store housed exactly what I wanted to buy. The last time I had a dose of God-awful customer service was a couple of months ago, when I'd gone to purchase a microwave oven for my parents in Kolkata, India. The sales people, scattered thickly across the shopping area, were like bulls in a china shop. They every broke every ground rule of "customer service" (and I'm discounting the fact they referred to "cartons" as "cartoons"), and my dad and I stormed out of the store realising they had what they were selling. Or doing.

Dubai is consumerist paradise. Resultantly, it's doubly more important for customers here to be served - whether it's a dinner jacket they are on the lookout for or a particular kind of service. Marketing analyst and life coach Gangadhar Krishna's illustrated book doesn't attempt to get preachy about a point of sales. It simply gives you a slice of life - by way of quirky illustrations, padded with zany one-liners, 202 of them, for almost every possible selling/buying scenario. I wish I had a copy of this book to hand over to the staff at the microwave shop, it's reductionism redefined. Some of them are simple and straightforward - straight from the heart - not purple prose.

Katherine Barchetti said, "Make a customer, not a sale", and the great Sam Walton said "The goal as a company is to have customer service that is not just the best but legendary". Bill Gates had it spot on when he claimed, "Your most unhappy customers are your greatest source of learning." Chip Bell encapsulated it beautifully when he remarked, "Loyal customers, they don't just come back, they don't simply recommend you, they insist that their friends do business with you." But there's no last word on customer service, it's still a work in progress - which is why this book is a handy handout.
A picture says a thousand words, they say. takes that forward. And it does delight. Rather like the 'WOW' (way of winning, anyone?) factor.
Delighting Customers Is.
By Gangadhar Krishna
Dh75
240 pages
sushmita@khaleejtimes.com