Rent-to-own News - Customer Expectations: Seventh installment in book review series

Editors Note: APRO is proud to present the seventh in a semi-regular series of articles by George M. Schorsten Jr., Operations Manager CEO of Blue Ribbon Rentals, reviewing the book, "Exceeding Customers  Expectations, What Enterprise, America’s #1 Car Rental Company Can Teach you about Creating Lifetime Customers", by Kirk Kazanjian.

George Schorsten and Blue Ribbon Rentals owner, Bill Wendell, began sending these commentaries out to store managers as a professional development tool this year. Schorsten would now like to share his findings with the APRO community.

Schorsten presents key material from the book followed by his own analysis in italics.

Part 12 -- Never Settle for Satisfied
 
In this chapter, Kirk Kazanjian tells how Enterprise developed their service quality index.  As with most statistics that we try to measure, the first few times we gather numbers, we see the need to adjust what we measure and how we measured it thus perfecting the quality of the statistic we seek.  During Enterprise’s search for measuring customer service, they found that “..satisfied isn’t good enough.  The key to getting customers to come back—and subsequently tell their friends and family positive things about your business—is making sure they’re “completely satisfied”.
 
“How do you really know whether your customers are satisfied? First, you must identify all of the variables that can add or detract from their experience—all the “touchpoints,” or potential face-to-face encounters between customer and company that make or break the relationship”.
 
The result of their search was something that Jack Taylor and, quite frankly, most of us already know. “Satisfying customers is not complicated.  It’s about doing the right things: smiling, shaking the customer’s hand, using a formal greeting with their last name, having a great attitude, and letting people know the company appreciates their business.”
 
This part of the book reminds me that we really do need to understand what completely satisfies our customers and not just assume that we know what satisfies our customers. We need to ask our customers and then act on their input.
 
Let me challenge you today to take the next week and survey the customers that visit your store.
 
*     Ask them if they are satisfied with the service you provide them
*     Follow up with the question, “Are you completely satisfied?”
 
Listen to their response; write them down; and then act on their response.

Part 13 -- Myths

As Enterprise’s Customer satisfaction ratings continued to develop, a few myths were revealed.  I believe that I knew most of them; however I have to say that I thoroughly enjoyed reading how these myths were dispelled by such a large satisfaction measuring system. Being an “old accountant type”, I especially like myth #2.

Myth #1: Boosting customer satisfaction requires giving away the store.
“… The company’s research showed that outstanding overall service, not giveaways, led to higher (quality measurement) scores.”

Myth #2: Good managers already know which areas need improvement.
“… Enterprise proved by comparing the managers’ intuitive conclusions with actual survey results, there is no substitute for statistically valid measurements.”

Myth #3: There’s not much difference between being somewhat satisfied and being completely satisfied.
“Completely satisfied Customers are often predisposed to using you again without even checking with a competitor because they know they’ll get a quality service a good value from you.”

Myth #4: Complete satisfaction means perfection.
“… a Customer may have encountered significant problems in the transaction yet still report being completely satisfied, provided the problems are taken care of appropriately.”

Below is a quote from a letter Andy Taylor received from a Customer. Shouldn’t we be doing the same things for our Customers?

“…it is refreshing to experience the following: To be offered a cold drink on a hot summer day; To be recognized and addressed properly by your last name, pronounced correctly, by the way; To be telephoned the day after you rent a car just to make sure everything was okay; and to be treated in an extremely professional and personable manner during the entire experience.”
 

APRO welcomes all contributions of this nature that assist the professional development of dealers, employees, vendors and the rent-to-own community at large. "Exceeding Customers  Expectations, What Enterprise, America’s #1 Car Rental Company Can Teach you about Creating Lifetime Customers", by Kirk Kazanjian, can be found in local and chain bookstores and through amazon.com

mevans@rtohq.org