Customer Service Information

Make An Action Plan To Improve Customer Service


Customer Service is a critical factor for keeping your clients coming back and ensuring they'll refer you to others. Growing your business will be a difficult task at best if you don't perform, meet and exceed your client's expectations, and provide service that creates customers for life.


Customer service is all about the customer's perception. You have to do more than just get the job done. You must deliver on all the things (big and small) that affect the relationship with your client. Consider opportunities for improvement in the following areas.


1. Setting/Reviewing Expectations. Do you work with your client to set clear, appropriate, realistic expectations that you can always meet or exceed? Are you clear about the responsibilities (both yours' and the client's), timelines, and expectations of results? Are you then willing to go back and review these expectations with the client at key points along the way?


2. Communication. Do you have mechanisms in place to ensure you're communicating with clients at every stage of the engagement, from the sales process through to completion of the project? Being clear about where you're at, what's been completed, what's coming up next, who's responsible, what results you can expect, etc.? Has the client ever had to ask you for these things?


3. Organization. Are you organized? Punctual? Reliable? When you show up to work with your clients, have you done the work and are you prepared to make them feel comfortable and taken care of? Even though you've done it hundreds, maybe thousands of times before, do you take the time to organize and prepare to make it the best client experience possible?


4. Committing to the Little Things. Don't ever dismiss the power of all the little things. Together they can make all the difference and really separate you from the competition. Returning calls and emails in a timely manner. Providing useful information to folks on a regular basis. Showing appreciation for your clients through things like thank you notes, exclusive client-only briefings, and open house, etc.


Clearly these are not the only relevant areas for creating great customer service. I'm sure you can think of more. But, pick just one of these areas and create an action plan to improve it in your business today. Make a commitment to continuously improve the level of service you're providing and see how it pays off. When you've done it, pick another area and work on it.

(c) - Kevin Dervin, KPD Marketing

About the Author:

Kevin Dervin is focused on helping small businesses that are ready to grow, but struggle with how to consistently attract more clients. Visit http://www.proven-small-business-marketing-solutions.com for more great marketing information you can put to use in growing your business today.

Find Kevin's Kansas City based KPD Marketing practice at http://www.ABCDgrowth.com and subscribe to his free ezine called ABCD Grow.


MORE RESOURCES:

Apple Tops Consumer Reports Customer Service Survey
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Overview: Less than a third of surveyed IT executives believe their companies are "highly effective" at adapting to changing customer needs and priorities. ...

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Linde Consolidates US Electronics and Specialty Gases Customer Service Operations
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“Having our customer service, sales management, operations, distribution, import-export and engineering management co-located will insure that our valued ...

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Greenbang (blog)

Green utility crowned for top customer service
Greenbang (blog)
By Greenbang on Thursday, 11th March 2010 A green utility firm in the UK has bucked the odds by winning an award for customer service, ...
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The crew of Deerfield Roofing sees its jobs through with great care and detail, longtime employee Joe Egnor said. Egnor, a Cleveland resident, ...



Brandweek Magazine

Opinion: Customer Service Is Key Strategy
Brandweek Magazine
The real action is going to be in customer service. Customer service? You mean those exotic sounding people in our outsourced call center in India? ...



Daily Commercial

Athletics and Customer Service
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So how does this tie into customer service? The abhorrent behavior we see on the fields and courts of competition sends a message of disrespect for people, ...



AT&T customer service employee saves customer's life
AmazingServiceGuy.com (blog)
Recently an AT&T customer was talking with their customer service service department. He started having symptoms of a heart attack and ...


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