Customer Service Tips for Any Business
No matter what line of business you are in, whether you offer a professional cleaning service in Newcastle or a car hire firm in New Romney, one of the most important things to get right is customer service. Customers are what make a business and retaining those customers is an essential stepping stone on the road to success. In this article we are going to look at a few ways to keep your customers happy and coming back for more, regardless of what product or service your company has to offer.
- Communication – First on the list of good customer service tips is communication. Whether this is face-to-face, over the phone or via email, communication is a key way to keep your customers happy. Having staff members that are comfortable talking to clients is a great start but they also need to be able to listen too. Many companies often neglect the fact that communication is a two-way street and will train their staff to plough through a conversation without taking any notice of what the customer is actually saying to them. Don’t be that company.
- Punctuality – How many times have you had to wait in for a plumber to arrive or been kept on tenterhooks whilst waiting for an email response on a complaint made to an online store? Chances are that the answer is ‘Plenty’. If you say that you are going to be in a certain place at a certain time, be there. If you claim to respond to all email correspondence within 48hrs, make sure that you do. Sticking to your timekeeping promises will present a far more professional image of your business than a tardy one ever will. Quick responses are especially important if you are handling a complaint.If a customer has a reason to complain it is likely that they are not going to in the best of moods, dragging the process out will not improve it.
- Feedback – Learning to embrace feedback, both good and bad, from your customers is an excellent way to learn what you are doing right and what you are doing wrong. Encourage customers to part with their valuable insights into your company by offering them something in return. After all nobody wants to do a consultants job for nothing now do they!
- Look after your staff – In order to offer the very best customer service to your customers you are going to need happy staff. Disgruntled, underpaid and overworked employees are not going to give a hoot about what your customers think about your company if you are treating them like dirt. Pay them as well as you can, incentivise their work and treat them with respect. Do these things and you will see improved customer service from your employees. Added to that will also be the benefits of lower staff turnover too which will save you a small fortune in recruitment.
While there are numerous other ways of improving your company’s customer service, these four will set you off on the right track as you continue to explore them. Keep them in mind and you will start to see the same faces patronise your business for many years to come.