Today I Was a Customer

August 15, 2008 at 1:04 pm | Posted in Customer Service, small business | 1 Comment

Today I was a customer. Come to think of it, I was a customer yesterday as well and for certain, I will be one tomorrow. In fact, most of us are customers every day. We buy goods and services, food to eat, clothes to wear, music to listen to. Oftentimes, our customer experiences are unpleasant and stressful and we emphatically decide to not do business with that particular company or store again.

 

As business owners we must ensure that our customers never decide to not do business with us simply because we did not provide them with the level of customer service that they want and expect. How to keep that from happening? It’s pretty simple:

 

1.  Cherish the customer (for they are the reason you are in business!)

2. Make certain that EVERYONE in your organization understands that they are “in” customer service, regardless of how much customer interaction they have.

3. Listen to your customers and learn from them.

4. Make it easy for your customers to do business with your company. Make your processes and procedures customer-focused.

5. Embrace the idea that the key differentiator in this cluttered business world in which we live is the quality of customer service that you provide.

 

Told you it was pretty simple.  Still, I bet that in the next day or two one or more of  your own customer experiences will fall short which tells me that it isn’t all that simple to provide this type of excellence on a consistent basis.

 

Do a gut check….are you providing the kind of customer experience that you would want to have?

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