Grow your Sales with Great Customer Service

In any business, it is a fine line as to how far you need to go to keep your customers happy and still make a reasonable profit. Sometimes it is easy to get sucked into going way above and beyond for little in return.

On the other side of that coin is taking customers for granted. Thinking they would never leave you and are happy. But are they? Do they sing your praises?

Our goal has always been to be a partner with our customers. Their successes are our successes and their failures are our failures. We feel their joy and their pain.

And we have gone too far at times and invested too much in a customer that wasn’t invested in us in return. And hard to admit, we have missed the mark at times and lost customers as a result.

Define Your Customer Service

So how do you define great customer service? For some of our customers they are thrilled that a human being answers the phone when they call. That’s not a high bar, but it says something about what low expectations some people have.

Another surprising comment from customers is that they don’t have to chase us for quotes. I know we all get busy and I admit, there have been times a request drops through the cracks. But to have customers tell me their previous vendor had to be chased all the time to answer them amazes me. It tells me their vendor wasn’t interested in growing customers for the long term. I assume they were just looking at who had the biggest project at the moment.

Build Customers for the Long Term

For me, great customer service begins with establishing a long term relationship. Helping customers on those big and small projects because all is necessary for their success.

I’ve also learned over the years that customers just want to be kept in the loop. They want to make sure you have their back. They are counting on us to make them a star. If they don’t hear from us they worry we’ve dropped the ball and won’t deliver. They will fail.

Communication is Key

I just took over a major account from an account manager that has retired. I admit it, I was worried. She provided over the top customer service to them. Would speak with them at 7am or 11pm, whenever they needed her. She would run to their office whenever they called. It was her largest client, so I get it. But, I knew I couldn’t keep up that level of interaction.

It’s been three months now and we’ve successfully completed several large and complicated projects for them. And this week they told me how much they appreciate all we do for them. They mentioned how much they appreciate our attention to detail and keeping them informed.

Be Honest and Build Trust

And, one of their key executives called yesterday and said, I know this is last minute, but I figured if anyone could pull off a quick 2-day request it would be you (and we did). It wasn’t a big request, but I wasn’t going to say no, because someone at his company had dropped the ball and hadn’t ordered some items for an event. We needed to make him a star. And, we got it done.

We’ve Got This

I’m not available to them 24/7 but I do keep them updated on all their projects and let them know “we’ve got this”. We are honest with them. We don’t make promises we can’t keep. And that’s all they really wanted all along. To know that we’ve got the ball and we are not going to drop it and leave them in a lurch.

As a result, we’ve just been informed they want us to handle their biggest event of the year. All of it. We’ve provided some elements in the past, but not all.

The project budget will be a minimum of $250,000.

Granted, we have a history with them, but in my mind, this was a huge confidence step in our direction because of our great customer service.

It’s Not Rocket Science

It’s nothing you don’t already know, but sometimes we just need a reminder:

·         Answer the call, the email timely

·         Answer questions honestly

·         Provide timely and accurate quotes or at a minimum let them know when to expect them

·         Manage delivery expectations

·         Be their partner for the long haul

I know it sounds simple, but so many people in business forget about partnership and building trust. Our customers know they can trust us. They know when needed we will bend-over backwards to make something happen.

For me, that’s how you grow your sales organically. When our customers change jobs, they take us with them. We keep the “old” company and gain a new client. We’ve had that happen a half a dozen times this year so far.

Treat Every Customer As Your Only Customer

One of our clients has taken us with her three times in the past five years. This time she’s in a much bigger position and just told us she wants us to do everything for her. And we are up to the challenge.

One of the reasons she told me was because she knew she wasn’t a very large customer for us in the past, but we always treated her as if she was our only customer.

That’s music to my ears.