Keep Your Customers Happy

Do your customers feel happy when they leave your business? This is a very important goal to have for a business, as it can generate many returning customers. Since the cost to acquire new customers is much higher than retaining customers, it makes sense to focus on keeping customers, through superior customer service. 

What does it take to consistently deliver and maintain great customer service? 

Training and proper hiring are very important to ensure the staff are serving consistently great customer service. While training is very important, proper hiring is even more crucial to ensure staff have people friendly attitudes. The right staff will create a culture that strives to always deliver superior customer service. This is important as staff will encourage each other to maintain consistent high levels of service to the customer. When new staff are hired, they will see the great business culture of providing high levels of customer care, and will be encouraged and motivated to provide that same level of superior customer service. 

Customers will notice the positive, people friendly attitudes of your business, and become loyal fans of your business.

Enhance Your Customer Service With Twitter

Twitter can enhance your company's customer service, by adding another communication channel for customers to make a connection with your company. People get tired of the long waits on either the phone or in a store. Plus, this may reduce the phone hold times or store lineups, as more people start to use this new channel. By providing a customer service channel on Twitter, it provides the valuable benefit of saving the customer time. 

When you setup a Twitter account for customer service, be sure to post the times that you are monitoring and responding to customer issues on Twitter. It would be a good idea to also let customers know the timeline in which they could expect a company response to their issue. This way it is very clear to a customer as to when the channel is open and being looked at, so the customer then knows when the issue is being reviewed. You will also need to assign staff to monitor the Twitter account, and empower them to be able to solve most issues quickly. 

So go ahead and setup your new customer service communication channel, and start saving time for customers, and reducing your phone hold times or in-store lineups.

Deliver Consistently Great Customer Service

Customer service is best when it is delivered at a consistently high level. Many times you can go to the same business and receive various levels of customer service. You can go to the business on one occasion and be amazed by the level of customer service and then on the next visit be very disappointed in the service level. When the service quality goes up and down it results in poor word of mouth advertising, which has a negative affect on the business. 

When the service is this inconsistent, this points to a hiring and training program that is not delivering consistent service quality. Businesses need to hire staff with great teachable attitudes. This is where past references will be very important to ensure staff have the needed attitude.  Once hired, this is where the training program needs to be developed to ensure that customer service is delivered at a high level consistently. Staff will need to be trained in product knowledge so they can answer all customer questions about the product or service. 

Once staff fully know the product or service, this is where the customer service training will start. Staff will need to be trained on how to properly engage customers in small talk to build relationships so that customers can feel connected to the business. Proactive customer service needs to be taught so that staff can anticipate customer needs and then meet that need. Customers will be impressed when you deliver proactive customer service. For example, refill their drink before they need to ask for a refill. 

Conflict resolution techniques will need to be taught so that staff can handle tough customers and be able to keep them happy. These techniques can also help reduce staff stress as they will be more confident in handling  tough customers. Staff need to have these tools so they can resolve conflicts quickly and still be able to deliver superior customer service to that customer. There will also need to be routine monitoring of the staff to ensure they are being consistent. This will reinforce the idea to staff, that they need to be consistent in their delivery of customer service. 

Once word gets out that your business delivers consistently great service, positive word of mouth advertising will bring in many new customers and help create a great business.

In Service For The Customer

The most basic question of all is, what is customer service? Businesses need to answer this basic question before they can create a superior customer service program. Companies are here to serve customers and if they forget this principle,  they may find themselves with no customers and then no company. Customers are the reason for a business to exist, so it makes sense to treat them to exceptional service. 

There are so many examples of poor customer service in every industry. For example, how  often have you noticed how long you are on hold when you call a company or how long a wait it can be to get a server at a restaurant. These are very common issues that could be solved if a business had a process in place to prevent these issues from happening.

Companies need to have good processes in place to serve the customer and keep them happy. Every business will have a different set of processes, but the principle will be the same, make sure the customer is served well. This might mean reducing hold times for customers or making sure restaurant patrons are greeted in a timely manner. 

The main issue is that business processes need to be in place to ensure the customer is happy. This means making sure that customer service is faster, better and more proactive to ensure the delivery of superior service to the customer. Once a solid customer service process is put in place, you will notice happier customers who will help create a very successful business.

Customer Service Can Be This Good

Customer service can be great if a company is committed to the proper training for staff and if management is fully supportive. For example, Apple is very committed to great customer service and it shows. Most companies say they want to deliver great service, but fail to fully commit to train staff properly and do not provide a competitive wage to ensure they keep staff.

The company needs to recruit the best people, with customer friendly attitudes, and be prepared to pay competitive wages to keep these staff. Staff turnover is not good for customer service, as the customer keeps having to deal with new staff and does not get a chance to build a proper relationship with the company. 

The management then needs to be prepared to spend money on quality customer service training which includes deciding how many weeks of training will be done and how to fully integrate the new staff into the business. Also, it will need to be decided how much authority to provide staff, so they can resolve customer issues right away. Complaint resolution processes will need to be setup, so that when customers have complaints, it will be a very smooth process to resolve the issue. Proper handling of customer complaints is critical, because you then have the chance to create very happy and loyal customers when you resolve these complaints in a superior way. 

Most companies have decent products or services, but often customer service is poor, so when your company delivers exceptional customer service, your company will prosper.

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.

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.

Engaging Customer Service

Does your business have engaging customer service? How can you engage your customers so they will continue to be loyal customers? The answer lies in social media, and all the various ways these websites allow your company to interact with customers. The two biggest websites that can be used are Facebook and Twitter, which allow strong levels of interaction between companies and customers. 

Facebook pages are great for branding and allowing customers to interact with your company. However, this post will focus on Twitter and how it can enhance your customer service. Twitter is a very simple website to use that can allow customers to interact with your company. Twitter is short and to the point, so the information is very concise, which saves people from having to read too much information. Twitter will allow  your company to post daily relevant information about your business that can benefit customers.

For example, if you have a restaurant , you could post daily food specials or end of day specials to move your food inventory. The other great benefit is the way Twitter can allow your company to deliver great customer service by interacting with your customers on Twitter. The customer service department will have to monitor your Twitter account to see when your company is mentioned and respond to any customer concerns or questions and followup as needed with the customer. 

Since Twitter works very well on mobile phones, it will allow customers to mention things about your business that they otherwise might never mention to your company. Also, using Twitter is like sending a simple text message, it will take very little time for your customer to send off a message to your company, which makes it more likely the customer will actually interact with your business. One of the goals of your social media plans should be to make it very easy for your customers to interact with your company and provide you with valuable feedback that can be used to improve your company. This engaging customer service will allow you to build a loyal customer base that will benefit both customers and your business.

Complaints Can Be Building Blocks For Success

All companies will get complaints, but it is how you respond to those complaints, that will make a business very successful. Companies need to view complaints as opportunities for valuable customer feedback that can provide great opportunities for the business to make positive changes. Use these complaints as building blocks for success in your business. The feedback that you receive from customers can provide you with great ways to improve your business. 

There are many methods to solve complaints from customers, so each company will have to design there own plan on how to ensure all complaints are resolved and are put to use for improving the company. I will leave the actual complaint resolution process to the individual companies, as each company is unique and will need to custom make their own resolution process. The main thing is that companies need to improve their complaint resolution so that they can learn from their customers and build a loyal customer base.

The added benefit from improving customer service is that you will build great word of mouth advertising that will produce many new customers from all the positive referrals. Trusted referrals produce great customers because the customer already has a positive view of the company before they go to the business. Your company may even save on marketing costs as you find that you are getting a lot of new customers from the great referrals. 

The basic idea of delivering superior customer service is to turn your customers into raving fans of your business, who will then become great promoters of your company. Once you start viewing customer complaints as building blocks for the success of your company, you will then be on the right path to building a great company.

Smiling Customers Equal Happy Customers

The smile, it seems very simple and easy to do, but often  its hard to find when you first go into a business looking to make a purchase. All companies want happy customers, but fail to have their staff deliver the most basic item of customer service called a smile.


Smiling staff send a great signal to customers, that we are happy to serve you and enjoy helping customers. How often do you go into the store and all you see are frowns or very disinterested looks from the staff.  It makes you wonder if the staff even care whether or not you bring in your business. The staff do not seem to realize that if customers do not continue to come into the store, they will be out of a  job.


Customers are the life blood of any business, so why not give them the most basic level of customer service, by smiling.