Great Customer Service Is Great Marketing

Customer service is a very powerful marketing tool for every business. However, a lot of

businesses focus on other marketing tools, such as newspaper ads or online paid advertising. These tools can be good for getting new customers but a business is built by keeping customers.

Customer service really should be called, servicing your customer. Your business is in the business of keeping customers happy, by delivering superior customer service. Happy customers not only stay with your business but also help spread the word about your company.

It is not easy getting new customers so it only makes good sense to keep your clients happy and give them great customer service. Great customer service can be delivered in many different ways. 

Get to know your clients and out of that relationship you will learn ways to deliver amazing customer service. Happy customers will become powerful fans of your business and help bring in new clients. So, start now and deliver superior customer service.



  

Word Of Mouth Is Still The Best Advertising

There are many good forms of advertising that can be used to get new customers. Google AdWords is one such tool that can deliver very targeted ads to your target market. There is also the usual advertising tactics such as; newspapers, radio, TV and many others. 

However, the best way to build a strong customer base is through word of mouth advertising. Now this assumes you are delivering a good product and have exceptional customer service. If these areas need work, your business will need to improve on these areas in order to benefit from strong word of mouth advertising. 

This form of advertising has been around a very long time but there is a big difference now. The internet has brought us many methods that can help spread the word about your business. The most obvious tool to use is social media which can spread good or bad business news very fast. Be sure to have business profiles setup on the major social networks. These would be; Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Instagram and others.

Encourage your followers to post pictures or post examples of great service or product satisfaction. You could run contests that encourage customers to take photos with your products, plus many other ideas.  Social media gives your business the incredible opportunity to accelerate the spread of word of mouth advertising and help build a solid business.   

Win Over Your Customers With A Positive Customer Experience

Do you ever notice how people in Starbucks are willing to tolerate long lines just to get a cup of coffee? Is it because the coffee is superior to other coffee shops, not really. Starbucks is amazing at creating a great customer experience for their customers. They always have friendly staff, and create an upbeat, friendly and inviting atmosphere for their clients. So while the coffee has to be decent, Starbucks is successful for much more than their coffee. 

A key lesson can be learned from Starbucks which can be applied to your business. 

The product or service you sell must be of decent quality, but it does not need to be the absolute best in the world. What is more important is to ensure that your customers enjoy a consistently pleasurable experience when dealing with your company. This means ensuring a high quality standard when hiring staff and training them to deliver exceptional customer service. 

A key aspect of customer service that is very important, is that the staff are friendly with customers and are skilled in small talk with customers to make them feel more than just a number in line. Those customer to staff interactions are very important and make the customers feel special. When a front line staff person remembers a customers favorite drink or product, it tells the customer you actually care about them as a person and not just as a customer.

The key take away here is that you need to make your customers feel special and welcomed. When customers know you actually care about them as people, they are much more likely to become long term customers.

What is Google Ad Grants? ($10,000/month in Free Ads)

Google Ad Grants For Non-Profits

My company will setup and manage your non-profit AdWords account, which saves you time and allows you to build awareness & get more donations for your charity. Google AdWords provides a tremendous opportunity for a non-profit to expand its donor base and generate more revenue for your non-profit.

Google AdWords provides a very effective way to reach potential donors for your non-profit. Most people use Google search at some point, and when they do, they could see your Ad, which increases your non-profit's exposure to a vast audience using Google search. These Google search Ads will allow more people to learn about your non-profit and potentially increase your donations.

Feel free to contact me for more information regarding this exciting opportunity from Google. Here is my email: jason@lightraymarketing.ca

Program Details

Google Ad Grantees receive free AdWords advertising on Google search result pages. Ad Grantees build and manage their own AdWords accounts similar to paying advertisers, but participate with the following restrictions:

• A daily budget set to $329 USD, which is equivalent to about $10,000 per month
• A maximum cost-per-click (CPC) limit of $2.00 USD
• Only run keyword-targeted campaigns
• Only appear on Google search result pages
• Only run text ads
• Go here for more program information - What is Google Ad Grants?

Enhance Customer Service Communication With Twitter

Customer Service needs to have various communication channels to allow the customer various ways to contact your company. Sometimes the best channel can be Twitter as it can allow real time communication with your customers. 

Real time communication allows customer issues to be addressed quickly and will clearly benefit the customer by saving them time. This allows customers to avoid long phone hold times and lets the customer know you are serious about resolving their issue. 

Another benefit for your company is that you can monitor what customers are saying about your company and jump into the conversation as needed to address any issues. This would be done by creating various keyword searches to monitor your company's reputation on Twitter. Staff would need to be assigned to monitor your customer service Twitter feed and respond to customers as needed. They would need to be empowered to solve most issues so that they do not need to constantly seek the managers approval. 

Also, its important to post the business hours that your Twitter feed will be monitored, so customers know what to expect and when they can expect a response. This way customers have a clear idea of what to expect and when their issued will be addressed. 

So, go ahead and setup your business Twitter account and see how it enhances your customer service.
 

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.