During times of an economic uncertainty, when consumer spending goes down considerably, the most appropriate strategy to retain customers seems to be, giving attention to customer service. After the recent financial crisis, a firm’s efforts should be focused on customer retention rather than attracting new customers.

A recession forces firms to cut down costs. These can be in the form of layoffs and/or reduction in marketing/advertising costs. But sometimes companies take cost cutting too far. For example, in order to cut costs, a call centre company reduces the number of call centre agents who are attending to customer’s needs. As a result, customers face long waiting times, which in turn adversely affects their perception of the firm’s customer service. A study conducted by a call centre consultant, at The International Customer Management Institute, suggests that eliminating four customer service agents in a call centre with 36 call centre agents can increase the number of customers put on hold for four minutes from zero to 80. However, to safeguard their position in the market, firms should try to avoid cuts which affect their customer service. If not done so, the firm may end up losing valuable customers in difficult times.

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Think of an advertisement of an outlet showing you long customer queues, with the sales lady nonchalantly filing her nails and the cashier jabbering away on his mobile to a friend, and not to mention the phones ringing continuously with no one to attend to them. And then you see a scene in the same ad depicting a complete opposite, sales people interacting jovially with a customer who seems to be receiving an ‘out-of-this-world-experience’, the most desired experience for customers. Customers sometimes are influenced by such demonstrations and visit the particular outlet in hopes of receiving great service. Indeed, advertising and media play a great role in shaping perceptions, but how many of these companies actually work towards making a customer experience as pleasurable for customers as ‘they’ think it is? When we move away from fantasy land (a world in which companies force customers to imagine about receiving exceptional service) and face reality (a world in which more money is spent on advertising about great customer service rather than focusing on providing it!), we notice that the Golden Rule which states, treat others how you wish to be treated, has become a mere cliché today. There are very few players in the market who can put themselves into customer shoes and determine what customers really want.

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It’s common in the customer service business to be asked “how does service and customer satisfaction affect the bottom line of a business”. The answer is undoubtedly that it affects each business differently, but it certainly has an impact. Entertainment destinations such as theme parks and cinemas prove to be an interesting case study in the correlation between customer satisfaction and the bottom line.

Service is often overlooked in the world of entertainment destinations. A common afterthought when marketing, product delivery and maintenance take hold of most internal spending. Staff training is geared at getting people in and out, keeping lines to a minimum rather than bonding with guests. You rarely if ever hear of someone jumping from one attraction to another because of service or a particular staff member like you might see in a restaurant. However, staff training and service can still have an immense impact on the bottom line. To understand this we first need to get a grasp of customer satisfaction scores and what they mean in real terms.

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