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:

SEPTA's Improved Customer Service Allows Riders to Discover ...
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"We developed this after determining our customer service satisfaction survey scores weren't exactly where we wanted them to be," said Ms. Ritchie, ...


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MarketWatch - Nov 21, 2008
The survey assessed overall client satisfaction along with their appraisal of response time, consultant image and customer service. ...


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OB), the leading provider of multichannel customer service and knowledge management software on-premise or on-demand, today published its 2008 international ...


Customer service expert is new Rackspace board member
Bizjournals.com, NC - Nov 21, 2008
Reichheld is a leading authority on customer loyalty and an author and frequent speaker on the subject. A Harvard graduate, Reichheld founded Bain’s Loyalty ...


Best Syndication

High Customer Service Ratings Draw Customers to CallCentric
Best Syndication, CA - 4 hours ago
One of the most important things to consider when choosing a VoIP provider is having great customer service and simplicity. CallCentric is careful to offer ...


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Record Journal, wa - 16 hours ago
One thing I’ve learned that holds true in any economic environment is a time-tested and cost-effective growth strategy: Make exceptional customer service a ...


Study Finds Companies Lacking in E-mail Customer Service
TMCnet - Nov 20, 2008
For others, it isn’t as easy to compete on price – but they may be able to get the edge they need with proper customer service. To study the retail sector’s ...


AT&T Tells Us Customer Service Critique Unfair
Dslreports - Nov 20, 2008
Yesterday we noted how AT&T was taking heat from Connecticut's Attorney General for poor customers service in the state, something local unions say is ...


Media Watch- Customer service
Billerica Minuteman, MA - Nov 21, 2008
I called customer service and explained the mix-up to the pleasant English-speaking woman on the phone. She put me on hold a couple of times while she was ...

Customer-Service - Google News

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