Providing excellent customer service can create loyal customers and referrals to friends, family and work colleagues. Your customers are a vital aspect of your business, without them you would not exist. Customers need to be happy with the service they receive so they leave your store or site happy, they will then come back to you and recommend you, this is essential for your business to be profitable and to keep growing.
A genuine desire to please your customer is the start to providing a good customer service. You do however, need to think beyond the product or service you are selling and consider the whole shopping experience your customer has while visiting your store or website. The essence to good customer service is to form a relationship with the customer, if you make the customer feel comfortable they will want to pursue the relationship.
Here are 7 top tips to providing good customer service:
1.Know you product
This might be obvious but you need to know your product or service that you are selling. Know how your product works and know it inside out so you are able to confidently answer any question your customer asks.
2.Provide Staff Training
If you have staff, train them. It is important that they know how to interact with the customer. With training they then have the knowledge and information about the product or service they are selling. Do this yourself or hire someone to do this. Talk regularly about the importance of good customer service and what this entails. By giving your staff the knowledge and information they need, they customer by answering any question they may have.
3.Be Friendly
This may be an obvious tip but it’s amazing what difference a smile can make. A customer should be greeted with a friendly smile and a warm greeting. If handling a customer enquiry on the telephone a smile can come through in your tone of voice, be friendly!
4.Listen to the Customer
Pay attention to what your customer is saying, listening is one of the simplest secrets to good customer service. If your are listening you are hearing the customers needs. There is nothing more annoying for a customer to have to repeat themselves. Let your customer talk and show them you are listening by making appropriate responses and suggestions.
5.Don’t make promises you can’t keep
Customers rely on you and this is key to a good relationship, so don’t make promises if you know you can’t keep them. For example if you are ordering wedding stationery or invitations on behalf of a client and you say it can be delivered ‘next Monday’, make sure it is. This applies to appointments too, think before you make these as if it is broken this will annoy the customer.
6.Deal with complaints
If a customer or client has a complaint you must deal with it and give it your attention. Do not shrug it off. You can’t please everybody but if you deal with that one complaint you may be able to please that one person. This is good business practice and you will benefit from this good customer service.
7.Go the extra mile!
What ever this may be, take it if you want to provide good customer service. For example if somebody comes into your shop asking where something is, don’t just tell them, show them. Don’t then just walk off, wait and see if they have any further questions. If you don’t have exactly what your customer is looking for, suggest an alternative. This kind of effort is noticed and people will talk to others about it.
Providing a good customer service is simple. To ensure your business does this simply apply these 7 tips consistently and your business will be known for good customer service. And the best part is that in time this will bring in repeat business and as well as new business!
