Have you felt that your customers are not satisfied even when you have delivered the desired results?
Do you want to take your customer service from good to excellent?
Is your company like every other company in the market? And you want to differentiate your services from the competition.
In either case this blog provides you 7 simple techniques which have proven themselves to be very effective in every business.
You could be wondering that if the expected results are delivered and the customers want results, why are customers not satisfied then?
It could be because results satisfy a customer’s business (delivered results) but they do not satisfy the customer’s heart. Customers do want results, but they are greater things they want but never mention.
So, what exactly satisfies the customer hearts?
Just like in life, it’s the little things that actually make a difference and here’s 7 of them which you can implement in your business right away.
1. Be proactive, Not reactive
Solving a problem before the customer even complains will always keep you ahead in the game of customer satisfaction. Restaurants are a great example; a trained server observes when a customer’s glass is empty and fills it before the customers ever gets a chance to raise their hand to ask someone to fill it. Solve a problem before it arises.
2. Accept your mistake, don’t justify
It is human to make a mistake but not accepting the mistake is what makes the problems worse for the customers. I had an experience with a giant company like JLL (Jones Lang LaSalle), one of the largest project management companies in the world, where they made mistakes but then made the mistake of justifying the mistake instead of accepting it. The problem was not big enough until the justification, then it was huge. Accept your mistake and solve it ASAP.
3. Always share the minutes of meetings
An average human remembers less than 10% of what happened yesterday. Often meetings are productive but after that either the customer forgets to share the information, or the company forgets to deliver things. After a while both parties start assuming that meetings are a waste of time and the other party is irresponsible. A simple solution to this huge misunderstanding is sharing the minutes of the meetings with the customer and other team members. 5 minutes can save your day.
4. Go beyond your scope
Every human has multiple problems, even customers, they bought your service to solve a problem but that doesn’t solve all their problems, does it? We all have many skill sets, the services you offer are probably your biggest skill, but you have skills as well. The point is sometimes you may have a simple solution to your customers problem. Solving it may not be in your scope and it may cost you some minutes, but it means a lot to your customers and differentiates you from the competition. Ask your customers “What else can I do for you?” and then do it.
5. Show your hard work
The customer cannot understand the effort and hard work you have done to complete their project because they have never done it and they may not know how it’s done. This may lead your customer to assume you don’t work hard enough. It is important that your customers see and value the hard work you have done for them. Show the hard work not just the results.
6. Thank your customers enough
Your customers need to know how important they are for your company, it is because of them that your company survives, grows and is able to pay for all people that work there. Make them feel valued and thank them more than you think you should.
7. Discuss progress and short falls
Everyone likes to discuss progress and show growing numbers, however, only a handful companies discuss shortfalls. When you discuss shortfalls, it is new for your customers because there is a high chance it has never happened before. It is when things are not going well, that a customer decides to leave the company, discussing shortfalls gives you an opportunity to win them back before you officially lose them. Have a monthly or quarterly meeting to discuss progress and shortfalls.
There is a fine line between good and excellent customer service and by implementing these technique’s in your business you can exceed your customer’s expectation, have a higher customer retention rate, generate more revenue, have less complaints and increase the number of referrals.
We at CYDIR are very firm about satisfying our customers, with an excellent satisfaction ratio we continue to help companies like yours achieve their desired sales target.
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