Great Customer Service Experience

How can you take customer service to the next level?

Just about every business intends to provide world-class customer service. And though many organizations claim their customer service is exceptional, very few can back up that assertion.  Once a company has established a baseline level of success in interacting with customers, it’s not easy to get to that next level of truly great service.  However, there are ways to elevate your game and, ultimately, strengthen your bottom line in the process.

Start at the top

As is the case for many things in business, success starts at the top. Encourage your fellow owners (if any) and management team to regularly serve customers. Doing so cements customer relationships and communicates to employees that serving others is important and rewarding. Your involvement shows that customer service is the source of your company’s ultimate triumph.

Moving down the organizational chart, cultivate customer-service heroes. Publish articles about your customer service achievements in your company’s newsletter or post them on your website. Champion these heroes in meetings. Public praise turns ordinary employees into stars and encourages future service excellence.

Just make sure to empower all employees to make customer service decisions. Don’t talk of catering to customers unless your staff can really take the initiative to meet your customers’ needs.

Practice within

The Ritz-Carlton Leadership Center suggests “regardless of a colleague’s title—employees should think of each other as internal customers who deserve the same kindness and attention as customers.” By applying internal customer service, this helps client-facing team members to deliver a great client experience. Furthermore, this practice will lead to genuine and sincere service,  increase the value of your organization’s relationships with clients, and builds a team atmosphere.

Create a system

Like everyone in today’s data-driven world, customers want information. So strive to provide immediate feedback to customers with a highly visible response system. This will let customers know that their input matters and you’ll reward them for speaking up.

The size and shape of this system will depend on the size, shape and specialty of the company itself. But it should likely encompass the right combination of instant, electronic responses to customer inquires along with phone calls and, where appropriate, face-to-face interactions that reinforce how much you value their business.

Give them a thrill

Consistently great customer service can be an elusive goal. You may succeed for months at a time only to suffer a setback. Don’t get discouraged. Our firm can help you build a profitable company so you may excel at thrilling your customers.