1 Customer Identification
The Three Key Elements
- Expand Your Definition of Service
How you define service shapes every interaction you have with your customers. Limited definitions of service based on an exchange of monies for goods or service misses the overall point of customer service. “Service” should provide the customer with more than a product or action taken on his/her behalf. It should provide satisfaction. In essence, the customer should walk away pleased at the result of the transaction – not just content but actually happy. A happy customer will continue to be a buying customer and a returning customer.
Of course you want to give customers what they want but this is not always possible. If you define customer service only as giving customers exactly what they want you have missed another key aspect of service – helping the customer to decide what they want. This is more subtle and difficult, requiring listening, friendliness, and empathy on the part of your service provider. By addressing these less obvious customer needs you can provide the customer with alternatives to their obvious desires (expanding your business) and get to know your customers better. Knowing the customer is critical to success.
- Who Are Your Customers?
Customers, buyers and clients want to pay a fair price for quality service or products, and feel satisfied they have paid for a service/product and received what they have paid for in return. They also want someone to take care of them. They need someone to understand their needs and help answer them. They need someone to hold their hands and walk them through a process. Customer service starts with the ability to listen to the customer and find out through polite questioning what he/she needs or wants.
Customer service and contact with a client mean that the customer will be heard and his/her problems will not go unanswered or ignored. It also means getting to know your client, his/her likes-dislikes, ideas, background, etc.
The other most important aspect to do is to listen to what the customer is saying. If people do not understand what is motivating the customer, they will not be successful in handling them. Do research on customers, their habits, and what they want and expect.
Most customer service is defined by how a company or organization treats “external customers,” but there is “internal customer service” as well. While this manual mainly addresses “external customers,” expanding your definition of customer service to include co- workers will lead toward even greater success. Remember, the internal customer chain is just like the external, we are all customers both inside and outside the company or organization. As a Wall Street Journal article succinctly put it, “Poorly Treated Employees Treat Customers Just as Poorly.”
- Develop a Customer Friendly Approach
One commonality among all companies or organizations that provide good service is the development of a system and attitude promoting customer friendly service. By “customer friendly” we mean viewing the customer as the most important part of your job. The cliché, “The customer is always right” is derived from this customer friendly environment.
Two critical qualities to the “Customer Friendly Approach”:
1. Communications
2. Relationships
The two main tasks of successful customer relations are to communicate and develop relationships. They don’t take a huge effort, but don’t happen instantaneously either. Positive dialogue/communication with your customers and developing ongoing relationships with your customers are perhaps the two most important qualities to strive for in customer service.