Use Customer Service To Build Relationships
In any industry the true value of customer service comes from the relationship you build with a customer. Whether it be good or bad, you are building a relationship every day by the way you interact (or don’t interact) with your customers. If you can establish a personal relationship with your customers, you are 10 steps ahead of your competition.
Use Public Complaints to Provide Good Customer Service
Recently, I witnessed an interaction between an owner and a customer which I found to be unfortunate. The customer was complaining ,of some problems, in a public forum. This gave the owner a perfect opportunity to come to the customers aide and provide great customer service. Instead, the owner told the customer it was inappropriate to make a post in this particular forum, everything was working fine on the site and then told the customer to send in a support ticket. Talk about a wasted opportunity. I feel a better way to have handled this situation would have been to address the customers concerns in this manner- “Hi *Customer Name*- I understand you are having some issues at *site*. May I contact you in private so I can help you resolve any problems?” Which way would you consider to be better? Use every opportunity you can, public or private, to interact with your customers and share important information in social communities.
Use Great Customer Service To Keep Customers
There will always be competition in the business world. When a customer decides to use your product or service, you have won the competition battle and now it is time to establish a relationship with this customer. By providing good customer service, you can assure your customers will continue to use your product or service in the future. Great customer service is a way to build customer loyalty. I feel it is imperative to a successful business to keep the customers who have already chosen YOU. While growth is important, achieving a sustainable customer base will help maintain your business.
In today’s social world, it is easier than ever to provide good customer service with customer relationship management. By providing timely information, addressing problems, answering questions, and much, much more, you have the ability to build relationships with, not only one customer, but many customers at once. The true value of customer service is building a positive relationship which will last.
Customer service is the most important part of your business. Your customers will make or break your success, so focusing on how you relate to them is crucial.
I totally agree Marcy.
Many large companies are developing customer relationship management departments. This is a trend which I believe will continue to grow in the future.
its another timely post.
One of the things in an online industry is there are choices and the choices are only a click away.
ask yourself how many ads and how much money and time is spend to gain one member/ customer.
how many thousands of ads need to be displayed Just for the opportunity to deliver great customer service.
then ask why would you do anything to make that customer/ member less that 100% completely satisfied.
James Dias
This is a great view point.
How much time and money will be spent to replace a current customer.
By providing great customer service, you can maintain a positive relationship which can hopefully last many years in to the future.
very true and excellent post cathy because whether its public or private great customer support is a must have if you expect to have customers
Thank you, Mo.
I feel if you can provide good customer support in a public forum, you can establish a solid relationship for years.
Excellent post Cathy! Customer service has to be the best in this very competitive world we have online. It is even made more difficult with our world-wide audience. We in the TE world just can’t afford to write-off any segment of the world just cause they don’t work in our time zone.
The “Hot Flash Ladies” do a great job providing your members quality custobmer service.
Cheers!
Tony Tezak
Thank you Tony.
We have been watching and learning.
If we can learn one thing each day to help provide better customer service,
then we are working in the right direction.
I agree good customer support is crucial. It is a very important for building a good reputation for your company or service. People do not remember all things you wrote, said or published. But they will remember how you made them feel. Make you customers feel good by answering/handling support questions in a timely manner. At the very least they will feel that they are important to you. Of course the opposite is also true if you wait ages to reply or do not reply at all.
Paula- you have hit the nail on the head.
This is my favorite quote -
“People may forget what you said or what you did,
but they will never forget how you made them feel” – M. Angelou
Great post as usual Cathy. I agree that whether a complaint is public or private, the end solution should always be the same, keeping a satisfied customer if at all possible. We had a live seminar a couple of weeks ago on human relations, customer relations and meeting new people in the marketing arena. Some one asked the question, “How do I comfortably meet new people on or off line?” The answer was first of all, “Always remember the three repelling C’s of human relations, Never Complain, Criticize, or Condemn others or what they do, especially in a public or social environment” His second answer to the question was the most profound to me,”The people who build the largest and most successful businesses in all walks of life, are those people who are always looking for a way to compliment or up lift the people they are around or in contact with.” We have to make people feel comfortable and not threatened when they are around us. Great Article Cathy, We Salute You Again.
Sam and Deb Burgess
Mabank, Texas
Like my Momma always said – “If you can’t say something nice, don’t say anything at all.”
It’s just plain common sense you want to treat people the way you expect to be treated. Think before you act is a golden rule to live by.
Oh this was a great post – and I agree with to one hundred procent. Customer Service is the goodwill of a business and should be treated as it is – the best value you can give a customer in any business offline or online.
Anette Hultman,
Thanks Anette. Goodwill is something which is invaluable to any business.
My response to this great post is simply this: Either provide professional, timely support to your customers/members of they will gladly go elsewhere with their business. They came to your site voluntarily and they will certainly leave just as quickly as they came.
That is EXACTLY the point.
Thanks Jonathan.
Superb Cathy. Excellent post, I think everyone gets so busy that the customer service takes a back seat, and this is so wrong. If you want happy customers you need to provide the support they need immediately.
Veronica Smith