My family and I regularly visit a restaurant where we are served by the same waiter. After a few visits, he noticed that two of us are left-handed and started putting our coffee cups down so that the handles are easily accessible for us.
Warren Hawkins, MD of Euphoria Telecom
With that simple action, he’s unlocked the secret to customer service.
The secret, whether you’re a waiter, a retailer, or a B2B provider is this: be inquisitive about your customer. If you were to imagine customer service as a pyramid, being inquisitive is the golden cement that keeps the layers solid and sturdy. Understanding what goes into this pyramid is the difference between your customer being satisfied versus delighted.
The foundation
Let’s be honest, the bar for good customer service is low because South Africans are so used to shoddy service. At the very least, the foundation of customer service should be that you’re getting the basics right: people doing their jobs in a conducive environment that clients feel welcome in.
That’s a clean restaurant where the food doesn’t take an inordinate amount of time, a retail store that has enough people staffing the tills, or a business where the phone is answered and you aren’t bounced around six times.
If this is the level your business is delivering at, congratulations – your customer would probably give you the orange face with the straight line for a mouth on those smiley face scales.
Stepping it up
Nobody gets excited about a bland customer service interaction and businesses should aspire to achieve better than neutral ratings. To step it up, you need to know your customer and understand what they do and what problems they’re trying to solve.
My industry, telecommunications, is notorious for poor service and I think that the root of the problem is that we’re selling complicated systems that need to be simplified. How do we advise our customers about the right solution for them if we haven’t even taken the time to learn anything about them?
By simply taking the time to understand a customer so we can serve them better, we’re getting into “good” customer service territory. That golden cement of being inquisitive is important here – get to know your customers as people, ask them what they need, understand what hassles they face and then solve them.
The pinnacle
In the age of personalisation, it’s not enough to simply know your customer, you need to delight them. To do this, you must show that you know their preferences, which you can only figure out by being curious. Bringing it back to the waiter – he could just show up to work everyday and deliver food to tables in a capable way.
Instead, he’s paid close attention, learned something about us, and taken a simple action that solves an issue we encounter every day.
In a business setting, it might be that your customer prefers to be contacted by phone because they’re on the road a lot and responding to emails is a pain. Delighting your customer can be as simple as showing them you remember. If you’ve already sold them a product, ask how it’s working out or if they’re enjoying it?
Share a tip for getting more value from it, or just thank them for their support before trying to sell them something else. That kind of follow-up, rooted in genuine interest rather than upselling, creates a connection.
In B2B interactions, I like to ask clients in meetings what they’re excited about or what new projects they’re working on. But the real magic is in remembering those moments for the next time you meet. Asking “you were so excited about that project, how is it going?” can genuinely surprise people.
Customer service is a feeling
Customer service is an emotional thing. It’s about understanding that when your systems go down, customers get stressed and you need to communicate early and clearly to help manage that. It’s knowing that when someone spends their money on something, whether it’s a service, a meal, or a new frying pan, there is an experience attached to that.
The businesses that deliver truly excellent customer service know how to create exceptional experiences because they understand exactly who they’re creating them for.