To get yourself in a position where you’re trusted by customers, you have to ensure your customers that what you deliver is what they need, that you can deliver it consistency, and that in time, it will become even better.
Customer service is a trust interaction. Customers trust their providers and they keep coming back because they know that the relationship is based on a perception of previous experiences and knowledge that you are able to deliver what they need.
Your returning customers know when they come back to do business with you – they will receive superior class service.
Why do your customers keep coming back?
- Because of your latest ad campaign click-through-rate improvement?
- Because you were able to increase email open rate by an extra 1%?
- Because you stated you’d respond in 24-48 hours and actually met that deadline?
- Because your call center task masters reduced hold time by 20 seconds?
Does any of that really improve the customer experience? I don’t think so.
What keeps customers coming back
- You deliver the value that you’ve promised and it’s better than what others offer.
- You value your customers, and treat them with respect they deserve.
- You deliver fast service, correct information, through the communication channel that your customer prefers.
- Your customers can expect that any promise one employee makes will be backed up by your entire organization.
The image of exceptional service provider in the eyes of the customer is one where customers can be assured that you hold yourself to the highest standard in what you offer to your customers and customers can expect on having their needs and wants met each and every time.
You are only as strong as your strongest link
People often say that you are only as strong as your weakest link. Is that really the case?
We all have strength and weaknesses. Common thinking states that strengths we don’t worry about, but those weaknesses are where we have to make our big effort. But is a slight improvement in those areas of weakness making the greatest impact to our service experience?
Focus on making great even better
Work needs to be done to improve weaknesses, but that can’t come at the expense of focusing on improving your strengths. Often times we focus on the negative areas impacting a small number of customers and make only modest improvements, when we could make greater improvements to the positive areas affecting most of our customers.
A poor performing agent who only handles 10 cases a day could improve satisfaction scores by 10%. But what if in the same amount of time, you could help a top performing agent handling 100 cases a day improve by 5%? Which one has the greatest impact to your customers?
Ask and listen more to customer wants and needs. Learn what they expect from your product or service and from your organization. Most often, you’ll find that what they really need is actually an improvement on something you already do well.
