Focus on Customer Service. Why?

Many small businesses fail to realize just how important good customer is for the overall health of your business. This can be a huge mistake, since good customer service isn’t just important… it’s absolutely vital. Not sure why? Check out these four simple reasons to gain a  better understanding.

1. It’s What Customers Will Remember

People will always remember if your customer service was really great or really terrible. You definitely don’t want them remember the later. You may be wondering why people remember customer service so vividly, but the answer should be fairly obvious – your customers are actively interacting with you. They aren’t just looking at your products, but speaking and working with someone who is supposed to represent your company. If that person represents your company in a good way, your customers will remember your company fondly. If that person represents your company in a negative way, you’ll probably lose a customer and garner some bad press.

Good Customer Service Tip #1: Never be pulled into an argument with a customer. It may be tempting to yell and scream when someone is being unruly themselves, but that’s highly unprofessional. Smiling and staying calm can go a long way.

2. It Reflects Heavily On Your Entire Business

Everything pertaining to your company reflects upon everything else. You see, if you have good customer service, people naturally assume you have good products. If you have bad customer service, people naturally assume you have bad products. The same goes vice versa, and can pertain to shipping, returns, services, and anything else. Even though this may not be entirely true, you need to be aware that this is how your customers think. Besides, do you really want to patronize a place who has bad customer service? Of course not, because if you run into any issues you can’t be positive you’ll receive the help you need.

Good Customer Service Tip #2: Ensure every aspect of your business is up to par. When you have good products, services, shipping, returns, etc., your customers will naturally assume you have good customer service as well. The same is true vice versa. Even better, an all-around approach will ensure your business is the best it can be.

3. It Shows Customers You Care

When you take the time to courteously and effectively take care of your customer’s issues, it shows you truly care about them. This shouldn’t be faked either. You should genuinely care about your customers, since they are literally the most important aspect of your business. Without customers, you sell no products or services. When you don’t make sales, you have no cash flow. Without cash flow, you can’t pay your overhead. When you don’t pay your overhead, your business literally fails. On the bright side, customers who feel as though a company cares about them are much more likely to refer others and become repeat customers themselves.

Good Customer Service Tip #3: Make things easy on your customers. When it’s difficult to get in touch with customer service, return an item, make exchanges, ask questions, etc. it only serves to frustrate them. There are always going to be some difficult situations, but the less there are, the better it reflects on your company.

4. It’s A Great Marketing Angle

From a purely business standpoint, good customer service is a great marketing angle. It’s something you can tout in your advertisements which is sure to bring you in more customers. People like to hear you have top notch customer service, pure and simple.  Anything that can help you with effective marketing is worth the extra effort. This angle works best when other real-life customers are talking about  how great your customer service is, so feel free to ask for reviews and testimonials.

Good Customer Service Tip #4: Remember that the customer is NOT always right. This may go against everything you ever learned, but it’s the hard truth. Instead of blatantly telling them how wrong they are, however, try calmly explaining things to them. Don’t just say “you’re wrong.” Instead, say, “I apologize, but…”

Conclusion

These four reasons show us why customer service is vital to the overall health of your small  business. It takes so little effort to have effective, friendly customer service, and the benefits are numerous. With a little extra effort, your business can soon be reaping the benefits of top-notch customer service.

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