ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Sunday, November 10, 1996 TAG: 9611080027
SECTION: BUSINESS PAGE: 1 EDITION: METRO
COLUMN: CUSTOMERS
SOURCE: JOHN LEVIN
Beth Hartsell has a simple definition of a customer: whoever walks through the door. "You're our primary concern. You're our bread and butter, and we treat you right."
Hartsell is general manager of S&H Auto Service, a four-person shop near downtown Roanoke where, she says, a primary goal is "taking care of the people who patronize you."
Car repair is a business where customers might be surprised to find an emphasis on such courtesy. But Hartsell says 95 percent of her business is from repeat customers.
Despite her determination to please clients, Hartsell admits she can't make everybody happy. For those who aren't, "I let them vent, listen to them and say, 'I'm sorry you feel this way. What can I do to straighten it out?'
"I try to be as nice and polite as I can. I give you my respect, and it really burns me up when they call up and talk to me like a dog," she said.
Hartsell's shop was at the top of the list when I asked some friends to recommend local businesses that do an extraordinary job of pleasing customers. Also included were a supermarket where there's always someone available to provide personal service, a busy medical clinic that's flexible to meet family time pressures and a big utility that's responsive and willing to help on billing problems.
Having heard directly from more than 100 of my customers about a recent change in the newspaper, I was seeking some benchmarks to compare my reactions and the level of service I offered.
A few weeks ago, The Roanoke Times launched a new publication, The Daily Market Report. The tabloid was designed to give our readers what many long said they wanted - a full list of all the major U.S. stock exchanges and all the mutual funds. To do that, we removed abbreviated stock and funds listings from the newspaper's business pages and asked subscribers to pay an extra 49 cents a week to subscribe to the new report.
We did it out of a desire to serve readers, knowing that not all of them want or need full information of the investment markets. But with more of us taking responsibility for retirement savings there was also a greater need for people to be fully informed about investments. Our new publication provides 10 times more listings than our previous tables.
Predictably, reaction was mixed. More than 1,700 subscribers had signed up, as of late last week, saying they are pleased to have the information they need to make informed investment choices. Dozens of other readers, however, have complained either about some aspect of the product or the concept of a separate product at an additional price.
What's been surprising is not that some readers were unhappy - even angry - but the strength of their feelings.
"I don't think your new dog will hunt," said a man from Roanoke, "and I hope it doesn't."
"It is a backhanded, sleazy way to raise the price of your fish wrapper," said another. "If I decide to pay extra, I'll pay for a better newspaper," said a third.
Like Hartsell, I let my customers vent. I listened and answered reasonable questions and complaints and felt frustrated about the ones I could not satisfy.
It is getting tougher to please the customer, said Ruth Ann Smith, an associate professor of marketing at Virginia Tech's Pamplin College of Business.
"People have become intensely demanding," she said. For several reasons:
*Following the boom days of the 1980s, smaller pay hikes and a less expansive economy mean that consumers often have less to spend and expect greater value from what they buy.
*All institutions are now considered game for comment and people perceive their rights as consumers go well beyond what they buy.
The value of what a company provides no longer is defined simply by a specific product or service but also by its ethical values. That's often defined by demonstration of community or environmental responsibility.
*Because companies can't fix things if they don't know what's wrong, more businesses have created ways for customers to communicate with them.
"Look on the Internet and you'll see sites for virtually every company soliciting feedback," Smith said. That also means consumers are growing accustomed to having the opportunity to comment.
*Technology has given consumers the ability to be anonymous if they want. And being faceless is often an opportunity to be less than civil. (Few of the comments about the Daily Market Report have come from readers unwilling to give their names.)
"There are people out there who may attack businesses as a means to vent frustrations," Smith said. Businesses are convenient targets. Some complainers abuse the privilege and themselves become unethical or unreasonable.
But in the competitive marketplace, Smith warned, "companies that ignore their responsibility to society as a whole are destined to fail."
LENGTH: Medium: 89 linesby CNB