"Small firms miss the point about customer care, because they wrongly believe their skill is the core of the business," says Geoff Burch, business guru and the host of a new TV series on the trials and tribulations of high-street businesses. All Over the Shop, now on BBC2, will feature some interesting characters who get the Burch makeover treatment as they attempt to turn their fortunes around.
Take the plumber who grumbled about being recalled to a customer after driving 20 miles to change a washer, for £15. The next day, the tap was still leaking. "I'm blowed if I'm going back," was his response. Burch groans. "It's not about the £15; it's all the people that customer knows. It's about the life value of a client, not the profit you make on one event."
Now more than ever, small, squeezed businesses may think it's hard to justify "extras", but Burch argues that the best service costs nothing.
For the grumpy plumber, Burch suggests a few simple measures like swapping his dirty boots for slippers when entering a client's house, ditching the 'builder's bum' look for overalls bearing his company logo, and providing a guarantee on his work. (A washer is unlikely to go wrong, but the piece of paper ensures the customer keeps his phone number.) "It's about giving the right impression," Burch says.
And it's not enough to take off his boots: he should point it out to the customer. "Make them aware of your attention to detail," Burch urges. To a mobile hairdresser, again, the advice is all about the "surrounding magic". Throwing an old cloth around a client's shoulders hardly delivers the salon-at-home experience, he says.
If businesses really are worried about service eating into their profit margins, perhaps they should put their prices up. Yes, even in a recession. Burch recalls two B&Bs on the same stretch of road. One offered rooms for £7.50; the other cost £280 a night. The former was struggling to get customers, let alone make a profit; the latter was always packed. "People only cry once when they buy quality," he says. "Ditch the crinoline loo-roll covers, the fish fingers and beans, and the rubbery breakfast sausages," says Burch. Give customers want they want, and they'll pay for it.
An Indian restaurant doubted this, swearing by its £5 curry. The owner had to eat his words when, at Burch's suggestion, he tried adding some premium dishes, including a higher-priced recipe made with organic free-range chicken and fresh herbs. "It outsold the £5 curry by two to one," Burch says.
One new business, Cruise118, has also found that satisfied customers will pay for good service. The company — a cruise holiday agent whose motto is "Nothing is too much trouble" — offers a concierge service that covers the whole holiday experience. From the moment the enquiry comes in to the days following the customer's return, the same person will be at the end of the phone, taking care of every whim.
"If a customer is spending £2,500, they deserve the best treatment," says director Mal Barritt, who dreams of a return to "good, old-fashioned customer service". The company was an instant hit: turnover passed £1m within the first eight weeks and the customer testimonials are flooding in.
A Cheltenham-based optometrist, Keith Holland, agrees that the devil is in the details. Customers who email him out of hours always get a reply, and all contact lens patients have Holland's home number. He went to someone's house to remove a stubborn contact lens from someone's eye on Boxing Day.
While Holland has cornered a market in providing eye care to children with learning difficulties, his general practice is also proving successful. He reckons he has accumulated 12,000 patients from a cold start 10 years ago, compared with Specsavers' 10,000. "This is despite their being a national brand with significant purchasing power," he says. "Our success is all based on word of mouth and going the extra mile," he says. "We're in a competitive market but also a mundane field, where a lot of people just tick along. We don't."
