What factors affect how a customer's special needs are accommodated?

There are a number of different ways in which a customer's individual needs can be catered for; these vary depending on the company in question and the staff involved.

• Company policy

A majority of companies will have some kind of policy, which indicates how they expect their staff to approach the individual needs of their customers. Different companies give these policies different names, however they all do basically the same job.

Often called 'customer care policies'; they are designed to clearly state how staff should approach customers and alter their approach depending on the customer's individual requirements.

Usually customer care policies will include very similar factors regardless of the company involved. They will often include words like 'go above and beyond', 'exceed what the customer expects' and 'treat all customers as an individual.'

• Training

The training that is given when a staff member first joins a company will also have a huge impact on how a customer's special needs are accommodated. As mentioned earlier, most companies will have some kind of customer policy that will detail how to accommodate special or individual needs.

The customer care policy should be provided, explained and covered in some depth during training to ensure all customers receive the same great service. If this training is not received, or is lacking in some way, staff may be uncertain of how far they are allowed to go to help a customer or may not know what is expected of them in terms of customer service.

• Individual staff member

This point follows on from the previous two. How customer's individual needs are accommodated is often directly linked to the individual member of staff involved. As annoying as this may be, it is often the case that one member of staff would approach a situation very differently from another.

Some staff, no matter what training they have, will always do the bare minimum to get their job done. Although such staff can be provide good customer service in general, they are unlikely to go above on beyond.

There are also staff members who will serve every customer as an individual, providing a tailored service to each one.