According to Bain & Co., "when interactions with sales associates are viewed by customers as positive, the number of items a customer buys goes up by 50%."
Wall Street Journal 4/11/11

Many organizations, both retail stores and companies selling products or services, invest heavily in products, services, brands, and operations, yet, do not spend adequate dollars to support the most important part of the process — the ultimate sale. And an integral part of the ultimate sales process is customer service. Quite surprisingly many do not even have a customer service strategy in place to manage the whole customer experience.

Recently the Wall Street Journal (4/11/11) featured an article on the new emphasis on customer service at Macy's. "The training session is part of a new strategy by the department store to improve its track record on customer service, which in recent years has dented the reputation of the storied retailer, lowered customer service rankings — and most likely slowed growth." With the economy affecting consumer spending, stores like Macy's cut costs, closed underperforming stores, and invested in technology to improve efficiency, drawing attention away from customer service. Their new training program focuses on face to face training as opposed to watching a video. Probably the most telling part of the article was a comment from Bain & Company who noted that sales associates who are viewed by customers as positive, result in a 50% increase in the number of items a customer buys.

One of the most important areas that companies and stores need to focus on to lessen customer complaints or dissatisfaction is customer expectations, which we must understand and manage. From the promotion to the marketing to the end sales, customers develop an idea of what they want and expect from a particular product or service. Sometimes problems can result from the customer's concept getting inflated along the way, but most of the time the problem is caused by ambiguous language used by the vendor in sales promotion and marketing. This causes the customer to be dissatisfied because he or she was expecting more in some fashion. Sometimes the dissatisfaction arises out of misuse of the product because the directions were not as clear as they should have been.

Companies and retail stores must make in-house customer service programs an integral part of their policies and be properly funded and supported by senior management. Customer service is as much of a sales plus for the vendor as promoting a product or service and should become a part of their advertising and in some cases, in-store promotions. We all know it costs more money to get a new customer than to retain an existing one. Therefore it is cost effective to keep existing customers happy. An effective customer service process will create value for your company and contribute positively to your bottom line.