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Customer Service, What makes your company shine?
Recently my wife and I really started to dig into the customer service part of our business to offer an overall better experience at our salon. We went through everything with a fine tooth comb to find a way to better ourselves and make a lasting impression on our customers in hopes they’ll return and even more so willing to promote our business all due to customer service. Yes people I believe customer service is that important, and I have stats on my own business to prove it. When I talk about customer service I’m not just talking about a phone conversation, I’m going well beyond that, it’s how you present yourself and the company, making sure a customer is satisfied today, tomorrow and even next week. One thing our salon does is that we simply make the customer happy and it starts at the beginning, make sure the environment is friendly and the customer is comfortable, this helps deter possible problems down the road. Next we REALLY pay attention to what they’re saying and try your best to be in their shoes to fully understand what that customer is unhappy or could be unhappy about. The other thing we dedicate ourselves to is making sure that customer walks out COMPLETELY satisfied, if I notice they’re not happy with something I’m there until the problem’s solved I don’t hand it off to someone else to take care, I personally take care of the issue, for some reason customers really appreciate it. If a product fails after the “warranty terms” I just take care of it because it’s more important to have a happy customer walk out and talk about me than an upset one.
Lately I’ve ran into several companies that have probably the worst customer service I’ve ever dealt with, I don’t want to drops names here so I’ll leave them anonymous, however I must say now that I own a business I really can’t understand how these companies are even around today when they treat their customers the way they do. I find too many companies now-a-days that really just don’t care as long as you send them the money, which in all honesty is very poor customer service. Or a company asks me to do something and just expects me to do it on my time and my dime when it’s their fault, I expect to be reimbursed for my efforts. I’d also like to add that customer service is something I think many businesses over look and in all honesty could possibly cause you to loose out on a ton of new and repeat business. Most importantly customer service should diffuse problems before they become un-repairable. Another thing about this topic that many overlook is that sometimes you may require the customer to do something, perhaps they need to retrieve a check statement that you cashed but have no proof of cashing. You’re basically asking them to go out of their way to do something for you that’s your fault, a good option here is to offer them something for their work, in our case a free pedicure, or head/neck and shoulder massage just for their troubles, or a gift card. This simply helps diffuse a situation before it ever develops. Sure it might cost me to do it, but from our statistics it’s ALWAYS shown to be positive in the long run and the customer never complains about the task I might need done.
So I’ll ask the members here at StartupNation what makes your company shine in customer service? What do you do that really works, what areas do you think your company could improve on? I’d really like to see what others are doing that works and what doesn’t.
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He who gets greedy like a pig, gets slaughtered like a hog!
