Any business that has poor customer service isn’t likely to remain in business for long. Good customer service is almost a prerequisite to having a successful business, but amazing customer service is what sets a business apart from the competition.
Learning how to tailor your customer service to your customers to offer the best service is a guaranteed way to increase business and develop long-term relations. Unfortunately, not many customers will talk about or review good customer service as they would bad, but if a business can offer something amazing, something different from their competitors that really leaves an impression, then customers are sure to mention it. Let’s take a look at some of the ways to consistently deliver that standard of amazing customer service.
Communicate Quickly and Courteously
Whatever the product being offered or the type of customers the business attracts, one thing always remains true. The core tenant of amazing customer service is good communication. Customers can be very forgiving to issues, problems, and other elements if they are being communicated with regularly, quickly, and courteously.
It may not always seem like there is information to convey, but even in such cases staying in touch with the customer, just to remind them they haven’t been forgotten about, will do wonders for the business’s reputation.
Understand Your Customers Needs
Very few businesses in the world offer a truly unique product. While there may be some differences between competing products from competing companies, it’s rare to find something unique and niche enough that customers can’t find it elsewhere if they desire. With that in mind, what sets a business apart from its competitors is superior quality and service, and to offer that the business needs to understand what it is they are looking for.
Jeff Bezos, Founder and CEO of Amazon has this to say on meeting the customer needs – “We see our customers as invited guests to a party, and we are the hosts. It’s our job to make the customer experience a little bit better.”
Understanding the customers’ needs will help to direct and shape the type of customer service that should be offered. Keep in mind it’s not always about doing more, though. In a supermarket, most customers are looking for a fast, efficient, hands-off experience, whereas in a car dealership that same customer will likely be looking for a more attention orientated approach.
Fix Your Mistakes
Running a business is a complex operation. There can be hundreds of moving parts keeping a business running and serving its customers. Businesses are also run by humans, and even the most careful of us are prone to make mistakes occasionally. Often businesses try to make promises of flawless customer service and attention to detail, but the truth is that no business can guarantee that every customer will have a completely issue-free transaction. Even when the utmost care and attention is given to all business operations, the nature of a complex entity run by humans is that from time to time errors will happen—and that’s not even taking into account external factors such as supplier problems or technical issues.
The true test of stellar customer service isn’t promising to never have any problems, but instead how you deal with them when they arise. If a business admits their mistakes when something goes wrong and makes every effort possible to rectify it as a priority, then customers will generally have more respect for it than a business that makes promises that are impossible to keep.
Bree Bensley, National Marketing Manager of Narellan Pools, comments, “in order to attract the right talent to our team, we have a comprehensive approach to recruitment, with detailed and relevant job ads posted in a range of places. As an organisation, we are all about providing opportunities for career growth, so we always seek to find and create career pathways for the right candidates.”
Offer Premium Service
Premium service doesn’t have to be the sole territory of high-end businesses selling expensive and tailor-made products. Whether the business is selling sports cars worth hundreds of thousands of dollars or loaves of bread, targeting premium service is a guaranteed way to improve the overall customer service experience for customers.
Elon Musk, co-founder of Tesla, and CEO of SpaceX, “I do think there is a lot of potential if you have a compelling product and people are willing to pay a premium for that. I think that is what Apple has shown. You can buy a much cheaper cell phone or laptop, but Apple’s product is so much better than the alternative, and people are willing to pay that premium.”
What exactly premium service looks like will differ depending on the products and type of business. Start by examining both internal business practices and those of competitors to get a baseline for the type of service offered, before finding the ways it can be tweaked and improved to add a premium feel.
Plan for the Future
When trying to provide a customer service experience that stands out from the crowd, it’s important to not only consider the service offered today, but also how that service will apply, evolve, and adapt going into the future. Thinking about how the business’s customer service both applies in the future and how it may change and develop over time is crucial to maintaining a record of amazing customer service.
Without good customer service, a business is almost certainly doomed to failure. It’s exceptionally rare for a business to offer something so unique that customers can’t seek it elsewhere if they feel like the service they are offered doesn’t warrant them spending their money. Finding the right type of customer service to offer your clients can be a fine balance, but one that will pay off far into the future. When customers experience superior customer service they tend to develop strong brand loyalty. Using the tips in this article, you can evaluate and refine your customer service experience to guarantee you are always offering amazing customer service, ensuring you gain the repeat business that is the life-blood of most companies.
