How to fake sincere interest in customer service

Every company talks about giving great service, about how the customer is always right, the customer is the most important person, blah-blah-blah. So why is it that U.S. companies, on average, lose half their customers in five years?

I think I know the reason: companies don't really care, they just pretend to care. If they really cared, they wouldn't do so many dumb things. Based on what I've observed, here are eight ways companies create the illusion of caring without spending a lot of time or effort:

-- Make customer service a separate function or department. Set up a special department with trained complaint handlers who know all the tricks. Some of the biggest companies do this. It must work.

-- Run frequent customer service "programs." Service improvement programs or special employee incentives must have a starting and ending point. Nothing lasts forever, does it?

-- Use one-shot training. Hire a flashy, high-priced speaker to get your people jazzed about customer service. You'll give your employees some new, if temporary, energy. Of course, soon things will be pretty much back to business as usual. But the company still gets points for providing training, and managers can cite their efforts to prove they are serious about service.

-- Equate service with smileage. Smiling and being pleasant is really all you need to keep customers coming back. If they have a problem, be sure to smile when you say "sorry."

-- Rely on marketing tricks. Instead of focusing on service, keep repeat customers with gimmicks. You could be like some airlines that get customers to stick with them with frequent flier programs even though overall satisfaction rates among passengers are dropping like a rock.

-- Flirt but don't marry. Long-term commitment to customer service? Becoming intimately familiar with customer needs and wants? Creating symbiotic relationships of trust and understanding? Scary! Can't we just be friends?

-- Work hard to reduce complaints. The fewer complaints you hear, the better -- right? So teach your employees to make it as difficult as possible for people to complain. And don't mention that every complaint represents a dozen others who never bring it up. Those are the customers you want: the quiet ones. Until, of course, they leave you -- which they will.

-- Avoid measuring. Your company can account for every penny and every tangible resource and asset, but how on earth do you measure the impact of service efforts? It's almost impossible to measure such soft data as customer loyalty, so why even try?

See what I mean? Creating the illusion of customer service is easy. Being truly committed to it takes creativity and concentrated effort. You must nurture a culture where everyone feels responsible for serving customers and where such service is recognized as good business. You must constantly reinforce among employees that service is a priority. You must empower employees to fix things for customers themselves. You must cultivate intimate business relationships with customers and respond to their feedback -- even when it's negative.

You can test your customer service quotient by asking your customers three simple questions: How satisfied are you? Do you intend to keep doing business with us? Would you recommend us to a friend? Tracking that data over time can help you know if you are improving. But ask only if you really want to know the answers. Otherwise, you can be like those other companies and just fake your sincere interest in customer service.

Paul R. Timm is associated with the BYU Center for Entrepreneurship. He is the author of 38 books. He can be reached via e-mail at cfe@byu.edu.

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