A place where the customer comes second Published June 2, 2009 By Lt. Col. John Clark 87th Services Squadron Commander JOINT BASE McGUIRE-DIX-LAKEHURST -- As I finished more than a year in the 87th Services and Force Support squadrons, I wanted to check our customer service attitude, so I asked several of our 850 manpower, personnel, education, dining, club, mortuary, golf, child development, youth, honor guard, fitness and lodging experts what good customer service is. Their thoughtful answers, earned through serving thousands of customers every day, clearly showed me I was the one who needed to think about customer service differently. The first thing I learned was "customers come second." You read that correctly. No matter what your business is, you have to take care of yourself before you open the doors. How are you going to provide good service if you aren't rested and well groomed, if your customer service area isn't clean and functional, or if you aren't trained and equipped to provide your service? You can't--and that's why customers have to come second. Value is another important customer service concept that has to be dealt with before the doors open. Value is a function of customer cost (money and time), perceived quality of goods and services, and value added by the customer experience. This is difficult to nail down because it varies from person to person. You have to ask potential customers what they want, how fast they expect it and what quality they are looking for. Give them too much product or too much service, and you'll have to charge them for something they didn't really value and was difficult for you to produce. Give them too little and they'll almost certainly not come back if they have a choice. If you don't know what the customer values, you will deliver poor customer service. Customer service must also be thought of as a two-way street and that leads to an unfortunate truth--the customer is not always right. As an activity owner, you advertise a service or product. When a customer demands a different product or a service than you have in stock or are equipped to deliver, you have to tell them you are sorry, but you can't deliver that. When you allow customers to consistently "order off the menu," you run the risk of completely failing or alienating other valued customers by distracting your staff in an attempt to fulfill their desires. Politely telling a customer what is advertised and available is not bad customer service. Conversely, unrealistic demands and angry words are the hallmarks of the bad customer. Customer service is a two-way street. The one thing I was right all along about is that good customer service is critical. If you have well-trained, people-oriented service agents delivering goods and services at comfortable and functional points of service, you will overcome mistakes, spend less time answering complaints, and win over loyal customers. There is no doubt that for any business, customer service is king.