Customer service (the good kind) is not simply providing a product or service, but rather offering the customer something that they need, a solution to a problem. This is the maxim of Lionel Lee, CEO of Bing Lee. The consumer electronics superstore business currently has 41 stores in NSW and ACT and an annual turnover of approximately $490 million. The evidence is all points to Bing Lee doing something right.
Family ties
Having maintained its status as a family business since its inception in 1957, Bing Lee upholds a family mentality when it comes to business relationships, especially in terms of its customer service.
“[My Dad] taught me, as far as is possible, to treat customers like part of the family,” Lee explains. “We treat the business as a family. Our staff are family. Our customers are family. If you’re not a part of the family, you’re not really Bing Lee.”
With an average of between 120,000 to 160,000 coming into the doors each week, that is certainly what you’d call an extended family!
Give them what they want
With such high volumes of visitors to the store, how does Bing Lee provide excellent customer service to each visitor?
“The challenge for us is making sure that everyone gets served consistently,” says Lee. The solution, according to Lee, is seeking out what the customer wants, what the purpose of the purchase is and selling to that.
“I need to know what your product needs are, not just because you want a price on this latest Sony or latest LG product, but to make sure that the product actually fits what you need it to do. That’s the concern for us,” he says. “We’ve been mindful of our customers and what our customers want.”
Everything’s negotiable!
However, what makes Bing Lee’s customer service so exceptional is their unique selling proposition – their slogan of ‘Everything’s negotiable’. According to Lee, this stems from their family “obviously being Chinese and working around the Chinese values of doing a deal”.
“We actually ask our customers to come and negotiate with us,” he says. “It doesn’t just revolve around price, whether it be delivery, whether it be additional service etc. etc.”
Essentially, Bing Lee has implemented the strategy of developing a relationship with the customer. The store isn’t simply a haven of products, but rather an arena for the consumer to have an opinion and are given the opportunity to voice it, whether that be on obtaining a better price, gaining more information or requiring better trade terms.
“The thing we want from our customers is interaction,” explains Lee. “Anyone can buy a product from anybody, but it’s the actual doing the deal and the feel-good factor of doing a fair deal and getting the right products that you want to buy – that’s what it’s all about.”
Good staff, happy customer
The last tier in the Bing Lee customer service strategy is to maintain a skilled, personable and customer-focused sales team.
“We can always get an order taker to be part of the Bing Lee team… but that’s not really doing the customer the service,” says Lee.
To maintain high customer service standards, Bing Lee enforces regular training programs for sales staff.
“We have implemented constant training with our sales staff to make sure that they hit certain KPI’s and obviously one of those KPI’s is the actual customer service,” explains Lee.
“We have silent shopping people that go around our stores and actually act as potential customers and give reports back on our customer service and/or our sales staff just to make sure that we continually strive for that good delivery.”
With great success in the market, Bing Lee obviously has great intuition when it comes to what customers want. Even the business’ catchy jingle ‘I like Bing Lee’ demonstrates the relationship it strives to develop in terms of its customer service. And customers’ love of the brand? That’s sure-fire proof of good customer service.
Important information: This content has been prepared without taking account of the objectives, financial situation or needs of any particular individual. It does not constitute formal advice. For this reason, any individual should, before acting, consider the appropriateness of the information, having regard to the individual’s objectives, financial situation and needs and, if necessary, seek appropriate professional advice.
Published on: Monday, June 28, 2010