Good Customer Service

What is customer service? Simple answer; good customer service is customer satisfaction.

So let's look at some of the many reasons a customer will want to buy from you, enjoy the experience and feel satisfied ...

You treat your customers with respect.

• Customers don't like to be taken for granted.
• Customers like to be given personal attention
• Customers like to see prompt notice of their presence.
• Customers like to be treated as individuals, if you have their name, use it.

You tell your customers the truth

• Tell your customers the truth, Don't try to cover up or make excuses.
• All your product, advertising, literature, selling techniques must be 100% credible.

You Provide great value for money - you over-deliver.

• Deliver a quality product, with honest, credible merchandising.
• Back your product quality with a cast iron guarantee
• Provide a 'no questions asked' returns policy.
• Give Value for Money, and fair pricing
• Pride yourself on good customer service and great after sales service

You employ competent, dependable staff and train them in your business

• Customers love to deal with well trained staff
• Good staff listen and only recommend what the customer really needs or wants. Pushing your add-on products are a put off.
• Make timely deliveries. Close just does not count.
• Deal with all complaints promptly and from your customers perspective.

Of course all of the above comes down to giving good customer service and so meeting the customer?s expectations.

Remember that as a business you cannot expect customers to want to do business with you.

Customers must give us their permission to allow us to sell to them. So, to grow your business you must have the potential customers permission in order to do any business at all, and this permission has to be earned.

Good Customer Service Tips ... How to earn your customers permission to sell to them.

Be your customer ... take time out and step into your customers shoes.

• Stand outside of your business and take a look into it. Would you like to do business with you?
• Be aware of what you are trying to sell and sell it only in the right locality. As your customer, would you want or need to buy what you are selling where you are trying to sell it?
• Does your business give the right impression overall regarding its advertising, decor, sales and service? Does it fit?
• Is your business wholly acceptable to you? Is it respectable and credible?
  • Ask yourself, If you, as the customer, would want to do business with you? Answer this positively and you are a long way towards customer satisfaction, by supplying good customer service.

Is it service? Really, as a customer would you say "WOW!! excellent to do business with".

• Good customer service cannot be the end product, if your employee relationships are wrong.
• So employees first. Treat them well so that they serve your customers positively.
• Give your employees the responsibility for customer service and the authority to say "to heck with the company, my customer comes first"
• It must feel right when serving a customer and if it does, then it probably is.
• Service is meaningless if your product is rubbish. Providing a good product is part of providing good service. You cannot have one without the other.
• Do you offer a full refund to your customers? If you are frightened to do this because of the potential costs, you should not be in business and you probably won't be for much longer. This is a true test of your quality.

An aside here just to illustrate the previous point. When we started our tubular steel furniture business, from scratch, we soon realized that our quality was of the best, no boasting.

After being in business for two years, we started advertising that we would give a five year guarantee on our workmanship, not on the finishes however. You have no control over the customer who carelessly or deliberately scratches your table top.

After a further two years, and not one return or complaint, we upped the guarantee to ten years.

We sold the business eight years later and had only once been called on to honor our guarantee. A man brought in a coffee table that he said his wife had bought from us some three years previously. It was very bent, buckled and bashed, obviously no fair wear and tear damage here.

We told him that it would be ready for collection after repair by the end of the week, no charge.

Only later did we learn that he and his wife had had a big fight and that she had landed, all 400 lbs of her, on the coffee table.

He and his new wife continued to buy from us for many years afterwards.

Good customer service certainly paid off there.

Policies on Customer Service are meaningless ...

Who needs customer service charters or policies? A sign on your wall cannot guarantee any actual form of service at all.

• So don't risk upsetting or switching off your customer with notices and signs all over your shop about what and they can or cannot do.
• Action always speak louder than words. So your actions and the actions of your employees are the only way to guarantee service for your customers.
• Your customer service ethic, if strong from day one, will always guide your business in the quality of your customer service. Sometimes you might even lose money providing good customer service, but that is the smallest price to pay for customer loyalty.

Remember, it is always the customer who decides whether or not you provide good service, not you.

Finding Customers ... through Good Customer Service

Providing outstanding customer service and rewarding loyalty is all well and good, provided you have the customers in the first place.

You have to attract and keep customers, particularly when your business is small. So here are some suggestions as to how to attract and keep new customers coming into your business.

• Define your ideal customer;
  they can be very varied, depending on your business. How and where do these people presently find the service or product that you would like to sell them?
• Consider the best ways to get your potential customers attention.
  Where do they look, who do they listen to, and what do they read when they are looking?
• Advertise so those customers discover you.
  Start small on local TV, in trade magazines, local newspapers, etc. Small but often.
• Read your local newspapers
  They are treasure troves of contact information and can lead to potential customers.
• Attend local events, meetings and seminars that your potential customers also attend.
• Find and define your competitors.
  What are your competitors doing? Where do they advertise, how do they promote themselves? Do the same or similar but emphasis even better service and cast iron guarantees..
• Attract people to your business by giving free advice, samples, and contributions to local newsletters.
  All part of your good customer service.
• Work to completely satisfy your customers.
  Focus on satisfaction and service, so those customers recommend you to others.

As a basic rule of thumb, you can bank on a satisfied customer recommending you to 2 or 3 other people.

Word of mouth recommendations are very good, and the best kind of free advertising. On the other hand a customer who is unsatisfied will complain to between 3 and 8 others. This is not the sort of free advertising you want.

Like everything else in life, you must have a plan, a marketing plan to attract customers and then you must maintain their loyalty through good customer service.

Keeping Your Customers ... Using Good Customer Service

Your customers are people and as such, they like a bit of love and appreciation.

They appreciate good service and tend to be loyal to a supplier that they are familiar with. You can retain this loyalty by showing some simple appreciation for their custom.

Customer loyalty is hard to win, but easy to lose, so reward loyalty with gifts, membership programs, events in the community and loyalty discounts.

• Stay close to your customers in order to know their needs and try to meet them.
• Reward employees who obtain recommendations from customers for your customer service.
• Show by your actions that you appreciate your customers loyalty.
• Keep a database of your customers, and use customer relationship management software, to help stay in touch.
• Think, of ways to keep your customers loyal, trusting and thinking of your business first and foremost for their needs.

Finally in this section, remember that most customers will never tell you when they are dissatisfied. They will however tell everyone else. A little appreciation and good customer service will prevent this.

Genuinely Bad Customers ... Yes they do exist

Customer service gurus will state that there can never be a bad customer, only a dissatisfied one. To put it politely, this is absolute nonsense.

In all business sectors you will find that there are simply some bad customers and you must have some policy on how to deal with them. From personal experience, I can tell you that all bad customers tend to fall into one of two groups,

• The, "I don?t know any better group"
• And, those that try and take unfair advantage or enjoy being difficult group.

You will, sooner or later, have to deal with both groups. Here's how to do that ...

The I don't know any better group ... You know the type; they cannot buy anything without coming back with it three times.

• They never read the instructions and cannot understand why it does not work, or won't fit together.
• They have no patience and will not listen to explanations. They never learn and never will.
• They cannot understand that the electrical gizmo is not and never will be designed to live outside in the rain and still be expected to work.

Deal with them politely, explain when you can, and demonstrate how it should be done. Then politely let them know that that is the end of the matter.

Good customer service can only be taken so far, if you've done all you can then take a cost decision and either offer a full refund or replacement. If the issue of compensation comes up, state firmly that you will not offer any compensation for improper use.

The take unfair advantage group ... These are habitually bad customers that you are better off without. Certain customers are not worth the effort. Here is how to spot them.

• They will try and take advantage of any little miss type, quote or word, from whomever they can. Anything you say will be turned to their advantage.
• They will always want more than a refund or replacement. Compensation is often demanded at the outset.
• They always threaten to go to the press, spread bad news, tell everyone and anyone and so on.
• They tend to move from business to business trying to take advantage. Check them out with other businesses in your local area and you will be amazed how many know your bad customers very well.

Don't waste your time with these genuinely bad customers. Good customer service is wasted on them. Don't do business with them again.