A customer is one of the most critical assets of any organization. How an organization treats its customers during interactions has a significant impact on future or subsequent decisions they make, such as making repetitive purchases, spreading positive messages about its product or services, or posting positive reviews and feedback on the company’s website and social networks. The loss of loyal customers can result in significant adverse effects, such as increased marketing costs, decreased sales, reduced market share, and a decline in the company's stock price. The repercussions can be far-reaching if the company operates in a highly competitive environment where competitors offer substitute products. Therefore, it is extremely important for a company to put effort into ensuring customer satisfaction in order to be able to retain them and give them another reason to come back and buy its products in the future. There are many evidence-based ways to do this, but in my opinion, portraying friendliness to customers is the main key. There are many demonstrable ways an organization can use to show friendliness when attending to its customers. They range from body language, such as training employees to wear a smiling face when serving customers, to asking customers how he/she is doing. It can also use effective communication skills like being polite and courteous, introducing oneself when attending to a customer, portraying confidence when speaking, listening to a customer's concern, and responding appropriately. The customer is always right. They have to be satisfied when leaving customer service. Lastly, company representatives should understand customers' culture and values and their meanings, such as maintaining eye contact and talking loudly, among others. The current essay explores strategies that can be used by organizations to portray friendliness when attending to customers as a successful way to ensure customer satisfaction.
One of the ways that help in creating a friendly atmosphere in an organization is the use of body language, such as wearing a genuine and warm smile while attending to customers. Wearing a positive smile makes a person build trust and appear approachable and cooperative. When I used to work at Kroger as a customer care representative, as soon as a customer came through the door, I always used to say with a warm smile “Hello, how are you doing today? Is there anything I can help you with?”. The customer felt welcomed and appreciated. While assisting a customer, I ask “Did you find everything okay today?”, and then while completing their order, I always make sure to say “Have a good day, and come back and see us again”. Customers can evaluate and judge a representative within a short time by just looking at another person's face. Therefore, by wearing a warm smile, a customer service employee can create a positive impression and make the customer judge him/her to be friendly and trustworthy. Maintaining a good body posture also helps in showing that the company representative is well-mannered, and it facilitates communication.
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A friendly atmosphere in an organization is also portrayed through effective communication skills that help to engage customers and develop trust with them. For example, when a customer approaches an employee in the front office or engages in a conversation on the phone, the employee should first introduce him/herself in a soft voice by mentioning his/her name and then ask him/her how he/she wants to be helped. As a result, the customer is more willing to open up and share his/her concerns since he/she is convinced that he/she can trust the representative to address his/her concerns. If the customer judges the organization's representative not to be friendly, the customer might opt not to seek help. Using practical communication skills helps in improving the customer's experience as well as establishing long-lasting relationships. Listening to customers is a part of communication, and it is a critical aspect that helps the company representative understand the customer's needs and concerns. Failing to listen to the customer might make him/her think that the person responding to her/him is harsh and rude, and this might be interpreted to be a form of disrespect.
Customers have diverse cultures, values, and beliefs that vary and might conflict with each other, and it is, therefore, important for a customer representative to have a background about the customer's culture in order to be able to portray friendliness in an organization. For example, maintaining eye contact has different meanings across different cultures. For example, maintaining eye contact in North and South America is interpreted to mean a form of equality among different individuals, but avoiding eye contact is seen as a sign of respect in Asian countries. Greeting a stranger firmly in America is considered appropriate, but kissing a person on both cheeks is appropriate in France. Customer representatives who deal with customers directly in the front should have an in-depth knowledge of different customers’ cultures in order to be able to portray friendliness in the organization by treating them in ways that are consistent with their cultures.
In summary, organizations can ensure customer satisfaction during their service using various ways, one of which is by portraying friendliness. Friendliness can be portrayed differently, for example, by wearing a warm smile and maintaining a good posture. An organization can also achieve the same goal via practical communication skills such as introducing oneself and mentioning the name, encouraging customers to ask questions, listening to them, and giving positive feedback after the conversation. Lastly, understanding the customer's culture is also important because different cultural values such as maintaining eye contact, greeting customers, and using different volumes while speaking have symbolic meanings, and if used well, can also help in portraying friendliness in the organization. The customer is always right. Customer satisfaction should be one of the customer representative priorities.
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