Poor Service Quality Impacts Customer Perception of Businesses

Service quality can make or break your business if you don't keep track of customers impressions. Business often focus on the physical appearance, atmosphere, cost, and offerings but sometimes fail to see the underbelly of what will make their place a success. Service quality can have a huge impact on customer retention and make or break whether a business can stay open.

Consider a restaurant that has a trendy name, great atmosphere and is all the rave among core crowds. The owners spend a great deal of time advertising and putting everything together but failed to train their staff on how to treat customers. The lines are long, the staff is rude, orders are messed up, and the price is high.

People may love what your business has to offer but they are not likely to return if their experience was poor. This is one of the reasons why trendy businesses are popular one year and close their door the next.  Proper service is like frosting on the cake even though it is the smallest part of the whole offering. Missing the frosting and you really don't have much of a cake.

Customers get an impression when they first walk into a restaurant. It may a positive first impression but if everything falls apart soon after that they will remember their disappointment for a long time. Reasonable mistakes can be expected in any business but customers service mistakes that lower the value of the guest are almost never forgiven.

 Training staff on human interactions and service operations help to create positive impressions with speedy recovery. No matter what is included in training it should focus on the importance of the customer. Anything that veers from this customer perception will dis-confirm the value of the business and may create a level of resentment among visitors.

Service management training doesn't always need to be intensive but does rely heavily on human to human social skills. All interactions should be positive and oriented toward the needs of the customer. Any time behaviors or actions do not focus on the need of the customer the entire experience can be hampered. A single rough rub and the perception of the entire business goes in the wastebasket.