Carpenter Or Specialist Fitted Furniture Maker?

Five reasons to spend more money and deal with abroad view of how satisfied the average customer is
specialist Fitted Furniture company so far. Now letswithout peaks of vitriol or hyperbole. There is usually a
consider the sixth.'comment' section at the end of the questionnaire that
Last week I discussed looking at letters ofallows the client some freedom of expression but it is
recommendation or testimonials from the company'sthe general trend in answers to specific questions that
existing customers. This can be very very helpful inoffer the greater insights into a company's customer
giving you the confidence to invest more of your hardservice performance.
earned money with an established cabinet makingLet us assume that the company you are considering
supplier, rather than the independent carpenter but I didbuying custom made fitted furniture from have a file of
point out that these, supposedly, unsolicited testimonialscustomer satisfaction surveys and that they are
if not all written by the managing director's aunt, havehappy to share them. Let's think about how they
their limitations in that they will inevitably have beenshould be interpreted: Firstly, are there a sprinkling of
audited, if only to the extent that letters of complaint -ticks in the boxes marked Poor or Bad? Believe me, if
heaven forfend that a reputable company would everevery response is Good or above something is amiss.
receive such things - will have been filed elsewhere,No company ever achieves universal approval from all
possibly in the waste bin.its customers and if all the clients surveyed are happy
Better still ask whether your potential supplier ofbunnies, you are looking at a faked, or at least heavily
wardrobes, study furniture or a home entertainmentaudited, set of surveys.
centre carries out its own Customer SatisfactionSecondly, where there are a sprinkling of negative
Survey and see if you will be allowed to peruse thecomments, and it should only be a sprinkling, do the
results. Any home improvement company thatclient's comments show that the problems were
honestly cares about its levels of customerresolved. Don't expect to find a company that never
satisfaction should be conducting such a survey on amakes mistakes, look for one that employs fallible
regular basis to establish where the shortcomings arehuman beings who occasionally err but uses those
and what can be done to improve performance.opportunities to show their customer service strengths
The benefits of this practice to a prospective client areto earn plaudits for correcting them.
twofold: firstly, the very fact that a company conductsLastly, if every survey sheet is 'Bad' run a mile, but in
such a survey is indicative of a positive attitude to thethose circumstances you probably won't get to see
perfection of customer service and, providing thethem anyway. However, ignore the odd sheet in which
company is prepared to share the resulting data andall the questions are answered in the negative,
that it is read intelligently, it can indicate, moreprovided it is only the odd sheet. Believe it or not, there
accurately than a selection of glowing testimonials,is such a thing as The Customer From Hell, they are
how well the company is performing.rare and one does ones best but as anybody who
These surveys usually take the form of questionnaireshas ever worked in customer service will tell you ' you
asking clients to rate a range of performancecan't win em all'. The important thing is that you try and
indicators such as product quality or staff competencetry your best, not just try your best as in 'that's the
through multiple choices ranging from very bad tobest we can do' but try your best as in 'Try, try again
excellent. Because all clients are rating the sameand then try even harder'.
functions by predefined criteria it is easier to take a