NASHVILLE, May 13, 2019—Nancy Friedman asked operators to call their own shops and ask for themselves.
“You must call your own shop and ask for yourself, a service or a product,” she said. “We cannot fix what we do not know.”
Few in the audience revealed through a show of hands that they’ve done this. Friedman, a speaker on customer service, formed her program around a word she calls WACTEO.
It’s actually an acronym meaning “we are customers to each other.” She said it’s the basic element to internal customer service. She pointed out basic courtesies for inter-workplace communication, like respecting personal spaces, working actively to resolve conflicts and respecting differences. She said that internal human relations should be made everyone’s business. Within her business of 23 employees, that’s how things work.
“We dont let things simmer when two employees are not getting along,” she said.
They’re also tips that lead into external customer service, which is the critical cog in the machine. She said that more business is lost through poor customer service than product quality.
Friedman said that most in the audience have those tools. After all, they were there representing viable quick lube operations and related businesses. But it’s the next step in customer service that sets operators apart.
That’s what she asked attendees to consider.
“After you close the sale, so to speak, what happens to that customer?” she said.
