The Journal sat down with Mr. Bourque, the man responsible for customer relations at BBSL, which services a large section of the business sector and for whom repeat business makes up more than 70 percent of their business.
"There’s sort of a shift, in that it (good customer service) used to be important, and it sort of slipped, and now we’re realizing that we went the wrong way," he said. "We’ve got to go back to the basic instinct, which is you’ve got to provide the best service that you can."
While he said he’d peg service in The Bahamas at "a somewhat high level," Mr. Bourque insisted there is room for improvement in the areas of customer service or satisfaction.
"It’s a simple fact, if you’ve got happy customers they will come back to you and buy more from you. It’s a simple business factor that you’ve got to apply," he said. "So that’s why you’ve got to take care of that first."
"If we don’t realize – as a society, as any business person – that this is what will make sure that we get money to put food on the table and things like that, if we don’t understand that we’re going to miss the boat. It’s that simple," he added.
Mr. Bourque pointed out that for BBSL, most of his clients can access what they desire on the Internet, for example.
"The reason why they buy it from us is because we offer the service locally. That’s a nice thing to do, but if we don’t offer good service, then it becomes a non-issue, it doesn’t matter," he said.
He said that is why his and a lot of other successful companies concentrate on excellent customer service.
Mr. Bourque noted that "good customer service" can be a number of things, including price, courtesy, and being willing to tailor what’s on offer to the client’s needs.
As far as value added to a business by good customer service, he looked to tourism.
"It’s the biggest industry we have, so that’s where you’re going to see the effect if we have bad customer service versus good customer service, because it’s such a big part of our GDP and our economy," he said.
"So if you have a little falloff in there, it will have a big impact."
In order to overcome bad customer service, Mr. Bourque said a company must first understand the root cause of the problem.
"If you do not understand why you’re giving back service, you might as well get out of business, because you’re missing the boat," he said. "Once you understand (the root cause) then you’ve got to be prepared to take the actions."
"These actions can be simple, to very complex, to a little tough like firing some people because they did something bad for example, to hurt the client or hurt the business.
CEO and Managing Director Evan Dean said at a recent BBSL Customer Appreciation event that the company would not be where it is "without the loyalty of the excellent clients that we service."
"We listen to them," Mr. Dean said, "so that we can fulfill their every need and its reciprocated in that they take our counsel and advice and the result usually is a very satisfied customer."
- Austin DWI - New York DWI