You hear this all the time, 100% customer satisfaction guaranteed....in the mall, on websites. This has been the mantra of great customer service for a long time, but does anyone care? does anyone mean it? In fact, what exactly is 100% customer satisfaction?

Is it satisfying the customer by sacrificing your (seller) satisfaction?

Is it vouching for your customers instead of your own employees?

or

Is it just keeping you and the customer satisfied at the same time?

Most of you would say it is the third option. Sure it is possible in 99% of the cases from my experience but we are talking about 100% right. If you have been selling something for a considerable period of time you sure might have run into customers that fall in the 1% category. How do you deal with such customers? Do you fire them? Do you sacrifice your satisfaction for theirs?

Sure I have had my share of bad customers as well. Some take away your designs and never respond to your mails, some want revisions and more revisions without paying an extra dime. As time goes on you attain immunity against such bad clients, you devise methods to protect your interests while not harming those of the client like asking for an upfront payment, charging for revisions etc. I came across a post from Alexander Kjerulf of Postive Sharing titled the Top five reasons why "The customer is always right" is wrong. In it he cites several examples of managers standing by their employees against difficult customers.

I, for one is a person who strives to provide 100% customer satisfaction. Often I explain to the clients that I'll do pencil sketches first and after your approval only I'll start vectorising the art work but more than 90% of the time I go ahead and create vector graphics of the art work for the client to see instead of pencil sketches. I am delivering more than what I have promised and my clients love me for that. Is that 100% customer satisfaction? ;)

Image credit: Dominik Gwarek

Labels: Alexander Kjerulf, customer satisfaction, Postive Sharing