Organizational Clarity: The front end where the customers "see"

The challenges of any local business are the front end where the customers (external stakeholders) "see" what your organization is all about. The issue is usually covered in training manuals everywhere, by the old standard of "greeting the customer in the first thirty seconds" they enter. Not only to acknowledge their presence but also to alleviate the stress of further interaction. However, after that initial interaction, the front line of the organization must be alert or aware of the time between the greeting and the time the customer is being engaged in regards the product or service offered by the organization that they are entertaining the notion of using, purchasing.

Sites like Yelp are great sources of examples of where organizations have failed to bridge that gap for their customers. Where the time from the representative says "hello" and to being waited on was so long that the organization loses a customer or a sale because of this gap alone. Whether that wait is 15 minutes to an hour it is important, to engage the customer until all interactions between the customer and the organization are positively completed. I have had some experiences in which a representative of an organization has had greeted me and dealt with other customers that came in after me or had me wait on "the side" to fulfill my request and take an extraordinary amount of time UNTIL I spoke up about my original request.

In either instance, I must confess as a customer, and as a student of organizational development, I detailed the situation, where the organization went wrong, gave them solutions to their problems through either their website and yelp. Of course, I usually do not go back or re-engage the organization to reinforce to them the seriousness of their issues. Most of the time organizations serious about their customers do their best to make the necessary changes, reach out and make things right with the customer.

But there are times that organizations do not take the commentary and data regarding these interactions to heart and simply ignore it, because "business is good..." However, the problems remain and a chorus of customer complaints get louder and multiply, that is when an organization suffers. Sometimes it can all be solved with a little due diligence or some simple engagement that keeps the customer feeling that they are still the number one focus of the organization.