» Six ways to make Customer Service work for youPlusOne

Customer service is an aspect of business that either seems to be done well, or very badly.

This posting comes about after reading a thread on a forum I frequent that was discussing why businesses don’t return call, are slow or fail to reply to emails.

The examples the original poster gave included unsatisfactory dealings with businesses he had been a customer of for a number of years and was for products that ranged in price from $50 up to over $500.

But one contribution to the discussion really floored me. In it, the poster made some direct points;

We all want great customer service, but here are the challenges:

1. Customer service questions seldom lead to sales

2. Why should I educate some one on a product, when the likelihood is less then 5% chance they will purchase from my store? Both in brick and motor and on line.

3. On the flip side Customer service does build good relationships and image with potential customers. HUGE Plus

In today’s global and highly competitive market (even given the economic woes) the need to maintain profitability, yet still have a key point of distinction all aspects of the sales process needs to be examined.

Firstly, competing on price is a sure way to going broke.

Value-adding however, can provide many ways to differentiate your business from the competitors – even online.

One of the easiest ways to provide value adding is through excellent customer service. The only cost is time, but the rewards can flow for many purchases into the future.

Answering queries is the start of building a relationship with a customer that can last many years and many $$. It is called the lifetime value factor.

By addressing a potential customer’s needs, you are building rapport and trust. While this may not be reflected in an instant purchase that can be directly attributable to that enquiry, customers prefer to do business with establishments that recognise them as individuals. More often than not, they will come back.

So here are my suggestions for making customer service work for you:

Treat every enquiry as importantly as calls from your most important customer.
Answer emails promptly – 24 hours for me is quite long enough, even allowing for international time zones.
Make someone responsible for attending to email enquiries (at least twice per day), and everyone responsible for handling phone enquiries.
Ensure you incorporate basic sales techniques when responding to enquiries – people want to buy, otherwise they would not be contacting you in the first place.
Treat them as you expect to be treated when you enquire about a product or service.
Where possible, follow-up (especially with email enquiries).

People thrive on personal attention and service – in fact in today’s highly competitive market, where price comparisons and choice is so easy, great customer service can in fact be the easiest differentiating factor you have.