How do you deliver excellent customer service in your business?

Hi Denise,
Customer service is everything. A clean store/office, pleasant knowledgeable staff, answering the phone in two rings or less with a friendly demeanor (and not putting people on hold, if you can help it). Customer service is the entire buying experience, soup to nuts. Whenever I manage a team, I try to emphasize how every action, every comment-- when interacting with a customer or on behalf of a customer or around a customer-- is customer service. Customer service is NOT just when there's an issue or problem. It's sort of a general answer, but one that I think is important. If more businesses thought this way, there'd be better customer service in the world! Without our customers, we aren't working. We don't have customers unless they have a superior experience.
Jess

Great feedback on this one so far!! Some quick points to consider regardless of industry.

My experience is to know your client, anticipate their needs and deliver service far above the expectation from the client. The best service is proactive. The next best is being timely and responsive when it's reactive.

I've learned that a service mentality is embedded in the DNA of some people and not others. Hire the right people to deliver the service you desire. Build a culture around the service model you are aiming for. Top down leadership on this is critical for success.

You read and hear that companies need to deliver an "experience" to the client for them to like and remain loyal. Sometimes easier said than done, but a consistent focus on service and executing the hard work to keep it meaningful in the culture should be a priority of all companies.

Apply SMART goals and ask "why" 5 times as you dig deep. This will help define crystal clear expectations which will be needed for others to embrace and engage. Best of luck...

I deliver excellent customer service by:

* Providing a free webinar series weekly to help educate business owners about social media marketing, reputation management, SEO, and many other business solutions.

* Providing a way for the business owner to make money before he has to pay for our services. It is an interesting twist on a traditional lead magnet except our lead magnet does not cost the owner any money, yet he is making money right away so he has the money to pay for marketing services.

* Listening to clients questions and concerns and providing innovative solutions.

* Follow up with clients on a regular basis making sure they are happy with our products and services.

* Offer incentives for referrals (if they are referring my business to others then I know they are happy)

Stupid simple: give them what they want!

OK, easy to say, not so easy to do.

The phases of experience (in short form) include: desire, choice/evaluation, decision, expectation, engagement, and rememberance. Each has its own psychodynamic territory in your customers mind/body engagement with your service.

The best service will be percieved and remembered by those customers who experience the least costs, cognitive and economic, and most joy, surprise and happiness, throughout the cycle of engagement.

In my opinion of course...

BTW, although you might be taken to ask customers "what they want" you are likely to come up short with the map they present. Psychological studies have show that people do not know their own minds and will "feel" and behave differently than espoused. (Not my opinion!)

Hi Ms. Mock,

Good afternoon.

The philosophy you have shared doesn't' quite align with your mission of delivering excellent service to your customers. The way I aligned them is along the following flow:

a - Customer has to gain from my products/services.
b - Customer's EBITDA has to increase as a result of my products/services.
c - When customer prospers through my products/services, I am likely to prosper.
d - When customer prospers, my business and EBITDA prospers.
e - When customers prospers, he would also provide referrals to me directly.
e - If I only focus on what customers buy from me, it is not likely to sustain.

So to prosper and thrive (or flourish) I need to:

1) Focus on relieving customer issues and barriers through my products/services.
2) Increase customer revenue through my products/services directly or indirectly.
3) Reduce customer's idling inventory/waste on a constant basis.
4) Help customer achieve 2-3 consistently throughout the year.

Hope this "Pull" strategy helps.

Dr. Shree

We deliver excellent customer service through the experiences we create for our clients and in turn advise them on how to create the most memorable experiences for their customers. We are also passionate, authentic and professional about each project we take on which resonates with clients and their customers! And, we practice what we preach in how we treat each other as well as our customers. We believe and we care and we know that making people feel "GOOD" at each point of contact is the absolute KEY!

So many great answers reading these can only make of us all better in the service industry.

Excellent customer service starts with your internal customer, your employees, having them engaged on making your vision come to reality. Your people attitudes have to be right to set the stage even before you start selling your services. Work on their strengths and build from there. Empower them to bring out the best in them. This will then make it easier to take your service to the customer. Invest in your people and they will invest in you.

Once your goods are sold it is so important to follow up with your guest/clients. Knowing the good and the bad are equally important. When a customer is not happy you should do what ever it takes to win them back. One upset person means a lot others when they talk. Never ignore a customer that responds negative on Yelp or other websites. Addressing them is so good for business and can calm the bad down and give readers a different view if your response is put together well.

Continue to improve your product or service let you customers know your accomplishments. Small changes continually can increase profits, sales, and your customer base.

Customer service continues to be one of the highest impacting factors of why people do business with a chosen vendor or retailer. The number one thing that people remember about doing business with you is how you made them feel.
Treating customers with empathy and urgency in serving their needs and goals should not be compromised. Price and quality can even be minimized when a consumer enjoys doing business with you (to some extent). Know your customer and care about them.

Setting customer expectations is key to providing excellent customer service. Being clear on what your company policies are ensures this. Also, having CSR's recognize that the customers' needs come before theirs AND that they have no business getting sucked in the customers' emotional turmoil. Knowing how to deflate that balloon is a skill. In addition to the hands-on tactics, it's important to have a means to stay in touch with your customers, soliciting feedback so they feel part of your product. This should lend itself to product loyalty. Customer service has always been ingrained in me from when I was a little kid so I learned to listen, be courteous, realize that an irate person is the one having the bad day - not me and come up with a workable solution so the customer leaves happy. Not everyone will be appeased but if you follow those basic principles at least you did everything in your power to resolve the situation at hand.

As a website designer, one of the things I used to do was to offer a 30-day unconditional no-questions-asked money-back guarantee. I had to seriously reconsider that policy when I had a customer who loved her website and referred people to me but then cashed in her guarantee and never told me what I could do to make things right.

Now what I do is I will make a website with no money down and then only ask for the money for hosting when they say they love the site.

I think this approach is really radical and crazy in many ways but it has worked well!