What is Awesome Customer Focus (Service)?
- What does Customer Focus mean to you and your business?
- When you are the one receiving the customer service, what are your expectations?
- Do your expectations change based on the price of the product, demand for the product, your emotional state at the time, your emotions – ego telling you “you’re the customer, you’re always right” or other messages that have been distributed in our society around how you should be treated?
Customer Focus and treating your customers right is a cornerstone strategy. The current business environment in which we operate currently demands the consideration of the cost of an unhappy customer, who cares enough to complain about your company online through many outlets (social media – Facebook, Twitter, Yelp, Foursquare, etc. and even some are unhappy enough to create websites to cause even more online damage to your company). Yes, the last example was extreme. Yet, we want to understand that keeping the customers you have happy and serving them with a great service or product will benefit your small business greatly!
10 Skills Necessary for Awesome Customer Service
- Effective Listening
- Attentiveness
- Patience
- Self-control
- Clear communication skills
- Ability to use ‘positive language’
- Persuasive speaking skills
- Time management
- Taking responsibility
- Willingness to Improve
Why Deliver Awesome Customer Service?
A core strategy for a small business or startup to get off the ground running is to deliver great Customer Focus. Getting happy customers will organically get your company referrals and recommendations. Depending on your industry, most people want to use a service or product that someone they know has used. This is one of the reasons Amazon.com is so great for reviews. Now, their reviews are junked up with some garbage, but overall you can still get an idea of the value of a product through reading through the reviews. These are people who used the service and shared their opinion. Other places for reviews and recommendations is Yelp, Facebook, etc.
6 Strategies to Hone Your Customer Focus
- Discover what the customer wants
- Create authentic relationships
- Be genuine and transparent
- Over deliver, under promise
- Reward your best customers
- Keep asking your customers what they want
Interacting with your customers makes you unique. You can differentiate your business by ensuring you have met the need your customer wants. Be sure you understand their pain point and have resolved that issue or need so they feel great about it. Deliver so much value that your customers can not help but to tell others about it and the fantastic experience they had with your company at every opportunity.
Customer Focus Resources:
- Raving Fans by Ken Blanchard
- The Simple Truths of Service by Ken Blanchard and Barbara A. Glanze
- All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten | Reconsidered, Revised, & Expanded by Robert Fulghum
- Perfect Phrases for Customer Service by Robert Bacal
Remember – many of these resources are at your local library for free! Or, you may want to get a copy for yourself to remind you often where you are headed with your focus on Customer Service and creating Raving Fans!