This is one of the many new programmes organised by the Management Express of the British Council and coordinated by Martine Fong.

“There's a lot of hype presently around customer care and the expansion prospect it offers to businesses,” says Linda. In fact, the success of marketing and communication agencies is quite a clear indicator of the ever-growing interest of businesses and of marketeers in staying aloof of the current customer trends. Customer Care is about how much you are ready to get out of your way to selling an experience instead of just a product, ” she points out.

“True passion, dedication and excitement are the engines behind CC. Without those, a company won't ever stand out of the rest and earn the trust and loyalty of its clientèle. Unfortunately, the mistake often made by companies is to try to fit in customers to the company's activities, instead of responding to the needs of these customers,” Gaskill says.

For her, a “merely satisfied” customer will quite happily go towards competitors and it costs much more to acquire new customers than it does retaining existing ones. This is where CC comes in as an essential aspect of business.

Wow and Ouch
Quoting Chris Daffy, Gaskill talks about the “Wow” and “Ouch” concepts. “The customer needs to feel flabbergasted by the experience of buying this service or product.” This may sound crazy and unattainable for many but, according to Gaskill, paying attention to the small details, trying to anticipate the needs and demands of the customer are enough to create this Wow effect.

“It has nothing to do with people's culture but is directly related to the organisation's culture and that of its people”, she says. The company needs the right attitude, training, passion and must know what's going on in the outside world.

Quoting another Customer Management guru, Ken Blanchard, author of 'Customer Mania', Gaskill says that attitude, relationship and customer focus are most important to develop customer loyalty. In order to be good, you have got to do something that makes you stand out of the rest.

Gaskill also hits hard at assumed but false concepts pertaining to customer care. “Customer service is not something girls do on the front line. A customer service runs throughout a whole company. Your Accounts Department has to ensure that these employees get what they need to respond to the customer needs. But quite ironically very often these employees are those who are the least paid,” she says.

Customer care is not about being nice to customers; it's about being truly focused towards their needs. And in order to respond to these needs the employee’s passion and dedication to the work is fundamental.

Staff on reception
Taking for instance the example of PanPacific Hotel, Gaskill relates that “this hotel puts its best staff on reception. Simply because they have realised that the reception desk is the interface between the customer and the organization and only the best staff are entrusted this responsibility.

“Customer service is the affair of each and everyone in an organization: ranging from the ordinary caretaker to the top Chief Executive staff. This is why it is vital to get customer focus integrated in all the strata of the company. The employee needs to feel important to the company. There is an implication here for everyone to be responsible for his or her actions.

She adds that customer care varies depending on how passionate and motivated employees are. For this reason, recruitment is absolutely essential. “Recruitment in the customer care businesses should be based on attitude instead of competence. You can train people to develop their competence and skills but the most important is their attitude. Employees should develop an attitude where they solve problems, where mistakes are made but where they know how to retrieve a problem when it happens.”