Shhh… I Have a Secret
Customer service is a pretty hot topic and can make or break your business.
Consumers
have little patience for lousy customer service and easily get tired of waiting in long
lines, trying to get a live person on the line, going through an interrogation to return
something or trying to communicate through a language barrier.
If you provide them with a simple, efficient, pleasant experience they will revisit your
business over and over. More importantly, they will tell everyone they know!
There are three secrets to good customer service, the first one we’re going to conquer is
knowing exactly what YOU want.
You are the captain of the ship and the visionary for the future of your business, so you
need to have a clearly defined plan for your business and that includes customer
service.
There are three main goals you need to consider:
1.It needs to be easy for your customers to do business with you. You can do this
with advertised discounts, kiosks, your website and other technology-based
programs to help them shop.
2. Doing business with you needs to be a warm and pleasant experience. Your staff
has to be knowledgeable, approachable, warm and patient. Your customers
need to feel like they are getting good value for their time and money.
Perceived value goes beyond the price of the products and extends to their
shopping experience.
3. Change your mindset and ask yourself “How can I NOT afford to do these
things?” This shouldn’t be a question of expenses, but making and keep happy
customers.
With these thoughts in mind, you also need to take a few things into consideration
when deciding on the actual programs and standards you’ll put into place.
Share your customer service vision with the rest of your staff.
Connect your incentive programs and bonuses directly to customer service.
Monitor the level of customer service your staff is putting out.
Know when you can ignore what your customers want.
Continuously focus on your goals.
Now, that you know what you want you can start thinking about how to meet those
wants and create a positive customer service experience.
If you’re having a hard time deciding on what you want, the tools, resources and
coaches in our FREE test drive can help you define the wants and needs of your
company in relation to customer service.
Educate Your Customers
Educate them about what, you may be thinking. Well, consider this, many businesses focus solely on attracting new customers, but you NEED to spend a good chunk of your time retaining current and former customers. These are people you already know to be a good sales potential…they’ve already bought from you!
Take the time to market and sell new products to your old customers and less time trying to sell old products to new customers and you will see a drastic change in your sales, customer quality and branding position.
Here are a couple of key elements to use to retain your current customers:
- Stay in contact: This means by phone, email, e-newsletter, in person-by pigeon if you have too!
- Post-Purchase Assurance: This means you need to follow up with customers. Your customers need to feel like they are being supported for their purchase and with the item they purchased. How many times have you purchased a product, then felt completely abandoned? Something as simple as a Thank You note with your contact or customer service information can go along way in retaining a great customer.
- Deals & Guarantees: Always offer your current customers the best deals and guarantees you have. Show them you appreciate their business or even come up with a club specifically to reward loyal customers. You can also do this with a preferred pricing option.
- Integrity: Using good business practices and simply upholding integrity, dignity and honesty go along way with customers. Let’s face it, there’s a lot of swindling and crap out there and the safer and more confident you make your customers feel, the more they will trust you and that makes for an amazingly supportive and loyal customer.
There are three cornerstone ideas to a successful business:
- Quality product/service
- Offering useful products/services that solve a problem for or enhance the life of a customer
- Offer subjects your customers find interesting
Use this approach of educating your customers and offering them real information and insight and you will be rewarded with loyalty and success.
Stop wasting all your time on new prospects while your current customers fall by the wayside!
As Jay Abraham says, “Your best prospects are your existing customers. If you’ve been putting all your marketing efforts into acquiring new customers, stop and diverts some of your resources into reselling, upselling, cross-selling to those same customers. In every ways possible – through package inserts, regular mailings, special offers – stay in touch with those customers and get them used to buying from you.”
So, there it is! Remember, our FREE test drive can help you put together the resources and tools to do exactly that. We can help you educate your customers and you can watch the benefits pay offer many-fold.