Thursday, September 20, 2012

Customer Service Fans

Customer service fans can become your biggest allies in building a great business, however most companies do not deliver good enough service to build these fans. Most businesses deliver acceptable customer service at best and at worst they deliver horrible service. The creation of customer service fans is hard and demands that your company improves its customer service. 

When I talk about fans of your business, I mean the kind of fans that will rave about your business to anyone who will listen. The conversation will often start out by saying; " I received the most amazing customer service from this business." Then the customer will tell this story about what great service they had from that business, which will make a very good impression on the person hearing the story. So now the person which heard that story will have a very positive view of that business, which causes the person to visit that business with a very positive outlook.

It will take a lot of hiring and training of the right people to create this exceptional customer service within your business, however the rewards will be great. One important point is that your company will need to pay competitive wages to make sure you keep your staff, so they can build positive relationships with the customers. It is through these positive relationships which will create great customer service and allow staff to implement proactive customer service to further enhance the customer experience with your company. Staff turnover is not good for business, as it increases training and recruitment costs, and the business to customer relationship will suffer. 

When potential customers hear stories of great customer service from trusted friends, they will be much more likely to visit that business. Also, when you start creating customer service fans, your business will strongly benefit from this positive word of mouth and will develop a very strong and loyal customer base.

Thursday, September 6, 2012

Exceptional Customer Service Creates Raving Fans

This is a quick story about some great customer service I received from the local cafe. We often hear stories about other people experiencing exceptional customer service but often we receive just average customer service. This story is a great example of proactive customer service that went well beyond the normal level of customer service.

The story begins by me going to the local cafe and ordering some coffee and asking for a glass of water. Now, I often ask for a glass of water but often just get a small glass of water, so I end up having to ask for a refill. This is not a big issue, but it would be nice to just get a big glass to begin with, thus saving me some time by not having to get a refill. So I receive my coffee and a small glass of water is put on the end of the counter for me to pick up after I put some sugar in my coffee. So then I go back to the counter to get my water and to my complete surprise the water is gone. I thought someone else had taken the water by mistake, but instead the coffee staff had taken my water and put it in a large glass with some more water. You can imagine my surprise at this great display of customer service, this is the kind of surprise that should happen more often to customers.

The staff were very proactive by changing the small glass into a large glass, thus saving me from asking for a refill. Anyone who has been out on a hot day and goes to a cafe looking for some water will appreciate a large glass of water. Can you imagine if more customer service was this proactive and how it would result in creating raving fans out of your customers. Create a customer service buzz for your business by training staff to be more proactive and see how customers can become raving fans of your business.