Are you one of our customers? Then it's all about you
(From Swindon Advertisier & Wiltshire Business - 24-7-13)
In today's competitive retail market, businesses are continually looking at ways to pull customers in through their doors but many forget one basic failsafe technique - excellent customer service.
With customer satisfaction ratings of 98 per cent of their Suzuki customers and 100 per cent of their Hyundai customers saying they either would probably or definitely recommend them, you know they're doing it right.
Set up in Wroughton as a coach company in the early 1930s, Pebley Beach has been providing the people of Swindon with transport in a number of forms - from transporting workers at Swindon Works to nowadays selling new and used cars as well as servicing and MoTing vehicles.
nlp jpeg display
Customer service is a key part of the company's continued success over the past 80 years - and according to Pebley Beach's managing director, Dom Threlfall, pictured, it takes more than just coffee and a smile.
""Good customer service is all about making every aspect of the buying experience exceed expectations - from the welcome our customers receive when they walk through the door, through to taking them home or to work if needs be.
""It's also about making sure that the atmosphere is right - everything from temperature and smells to the type and volume of music playing. Making our customers feel relaxed and comfortable is important so we've recently upgraded our cafe area providing complimentary drinks and snacks and we've created an internet bar with wifi and iPads available to borrow whilst you wait.""
But however important creating the right environment for your customer is, it's just as important to understand how the customer is thinking and the experience from their point of view.
So, the Pebley Beach team regularly undergo voluntary neurol-linguistic programming training to understand how their customers tick and how they can improve the experience for everyone.
Another reason that customer service is so strong at Pebley Beach is that all staff take ownership of how it is done. Members of staff from each department have the opportunity to sit on a rotating Enhancement Focus Group, which focuses on the customer experience and how to improve it. It is through this group that initiatives such as the development of the café area have come about.
Dom sums up successful customer service however as a much simpler formula: ""The key is common courtesy and treating people how you would like to be treated. It's not difficult, you just have to have the right culture and manners - and that's what we look for in every Pebley employee.""
For more information on Pebley, visit www.pebley.co.uk or call 01793 816800.
What is NLP?
Neuro-linguistic programming (NLP) training provides people with the tools, concepts and models that they can use to excel in a variety of different tasks and situations.
Pebley Beach approached Tony Nutley at the UK College of Personal Development to show the team how NLP techniques can be applied to excellence in customer service..
The focus for the Pebley Beach team was on understanding real communication and perfecting the subtle skills of understanding what a customer is truly saying.
It's the art of directing understand and matching their visual language, amongst other things, so identifying what is most important to them and focusing on that to help them make the right decisions that ultimately the customer will be happy with for a long time.
All too often, sales people will sell customers what they think they want rather than stopping and listening to understand what the customer really wants - this is difference that the Pebley team offers with their skills developed through the NLP training.
The team also looked at the importance of aligning yourself with customers - as well as the company - through language, behaviours and sharing a vision of what success would be in order to achieve the best customer service possible.