How important is customer service to your business?

[ChrisHeggem]

I think we'd all agree that customers are vital to business success, yet many companies avoid customer service like it was the plague (don't provide support contact info on the site, reply slowly, outsource support).

How important is customer support and what steps should we take to deliver a better customer experience?

[Milkerz]

The best step to delivering the best customer service is to look after your staff. If the staff are happy, they are naturally going to give better customer service.

[dominantapproach]

I think to deliver the better customer experience online is live chats because most people are impatient. Also having your customer service representative well knowledgeable on your product / service is a big plus.

[nmsptyltd]

To give your clients great customer experience I think you should give the best/quality products/services they paid for. Without them there will be no businesses so I think treating them as VIPs would give them the best customer experience plus there's a bigger chance of them coming back and referring you to others.

[WHUK]

Customer service is one of the best way to get conneted to your client on long term basic. You need to empower your front line people to respond to customer issues and make good decisions in line with your company Core Values. If every “tough situation” results in the issue being forwarded to someone “in authority” to deal with, you’re going to eat into profits and have even more frustrated customers.

[mgxsolutions]

First and foremost, the product/service needs to be top notch. Customer service is highly important as well though, so that cannot be skimped on in any way. Your product/services grab the customer. Your customer service keeps the customer.

[UAS Trevor]

The following is a piece of one of my articles the whole article is 15 pages or so, if you want a copy PM me....i think it sums up everything and may give some ideas on how to improve your customer service.

The key to a successful business is a steady customer base. After all, successful businesses typically
see 80 percent of their business come from 20 percent of their customers. Too many businesses
neglect this loyal customer base in pursuit of new customers. However, since the cost to attract new
customers is significantly more than to maintain your relationship with existing ones, your efforts
toward building customer loyalty will certainly payoff.
Here are a few ways to build customer loyalty:
· Communicate: Whether it is an email newsletter, monthly flier, a reminder card for a tune up, or
a holiday greeting card, reach out to your steady customers. Constant Contact will allow you to
do this without taking a lot of your time.
· Customer Service: Go the extra distance and meet customer needs. Train the staff to do the
same. Customers remember being treated well.
· Employee Loyalty. Loyalty works from the top down. If you are loyal to your employees, they
will feel positively about their jobs and pass that loyalty along to your customers.
· Employee Training: Train employees in the manner that you want them to interact with
customers. Empower employees to make decisions that benefit the customer.
· Customer Incentives: Give customers a reason to return to your business. For instance,
because children outgrow shoes quickly, the owner of a children’s shoe store might offer a card
that makes the tenth pair of shoes half price. Likewise, a dentist may give a free cleaning to
anyone who has seen him regularly for five years.
· Product Awareness: Know what your steady patrons purchase and keep these items in stock.
Add other products and/or services that accompany or compliment the products that your
regular customers buy regularly. And make sure that your staff understands everything they
can about your products.
· Reliability: If you say a purchase will arrive on Wednesday, deliver it on Wednesday. Be reliable.
If something goes wrong, let customers know immediately and compensate them for their
inconvenience.
· Be Flexible: Try to solve customer problems or complaints to the best of your ability. Excuses
— such as "That's our policy" — will lose more customers then setting the store on fire.
· People over Technology: The harder it is for a customer to speak to a human being when he or
she has a problem, the less likely it is that you will see that customer again.
· Know Their Names: Remember the theme song to the television show Cheers? Get to know the
names of regular customers or at least recognize their faces.

Rules for great customer service
Think about the last time you had a negative buying experience. Did an e-commerce site fail to respond
to your email query? Did a sales associate at your neighborhood computer store fail to know the
difference between a floppy drive and a hard drive? Perhaps you were left on hold for an inordinate
amount of time when you called a mail-order company's toll-free line.
Negative buying experiences are almost always linked to shoddy customer service. Even though most
businesses claim that they put people first, it's rare to find good customer support.
But customer service isn’t extinct. In fact, after consumer groups and the media took potshots last
year at e-commerce sites for leaving customers in the lurch, many businesses began to focus more
attention on their service.
Strong customer service is a business essential. Providing it isn’t as difficult if
you and your employees achieve these 10 basic rules:
· Commit to quality service. Everyone in the company needs to be devoted to creating a positive
experience for the customer. Always try to go above and beyond customer expectations.
· Know your products. Convey an articulate and in-depth knowledge of products and services to
win customer trust and confidence. Know your company’s products, services, and return
policies inside and out. Try to anticipate the types of questions that customers will ask. Update
and amend your FAQ page frequently.
· Know your customers. Try to learn everything you can about your customers in order to tailor
your service approach to their needs and buying habits. Talk to customers about their
experience with your company, and listen to their complaints. In this way, you can get to the
root of customer dissatisfaction.
· Treat people with courtesy and respect. Remember that every time that you, your employees,
and your colleagues make contact with a customer — whether it’s by email, phone, written
correspondence, or a face-to-face meeting — the interaction leaves an impression with that
customer. Use conciliatory phrases — "Sorry to keep you waiting," "Thanks for your order,"
"You’re welcome," and "It’s been a pleasure helping you" — to demonstrate not only your
commitment to customer satisfaction but your dedication to courtesy.
· Never argue with a customer. You know very well that the customer isn’t always right. However,
it is important that you do not focus on the missteps of a particular situation; instead,
concentrate on how to fix it. Research shows that 7 out of 10 customers will do business with a
company again if that business resolves a complaint in their favor.
· Don’t leave customers in limbo. Repairs, callbacks, and emails need to be handled with a sense
of urgency. Customers want immediate resolution, and if you can give it to them, you will
probably win their repeat business. Research shows that the instance of repeat business goes
up to 95 percent when complaints are resolved on the spot.
· Always provide what you promise. Fail to do this and you’ll lose both credibility and customers.
If you guarantee a quote within 24 hours, get the quote out in a day or less. If and when you
neglect to make good on your promise, apologize to the customer and offer some type of
compensation, such as a discount or free delivery. Overall, only make promises that you are
confident that you and your business can keep.
· Assume that your customers tell the truth. Even though it may appear that customers lie to
manipulate a situation to their advantage, it is to your advantage to give them the benefit of the
doubt. The majority of customers don’t like to complain; in fact, they’ll go out of their way —
perhaps all the way to a competitor — to avoid it. If you hear unhappy rumblings from your
customers, take their complaints to heart and do your best to appease their dissatisfaction.
· Focus on making customers — not on sales. Salespeople, especially those who get paid on
commission, sometimes focus on the volume instead of on the quality of the sale. Remember
that to keep a customer’s business is more important than to close a sale. Research shows that
it costs six times more to attract a new customer than it does to keep an existing one. Moreover,
happy customers are the best and most effective way to find new customers. To ensure that you
accurately track your customers, your business might want to invest in CRM software. A CRM
software will help you track customers, however I have never personally used one I keep a very
simple system within Microsoft outlook and take notes on each, this method is not for everyone.
CRM is by far the more user friendly route.
· Make it easy to buy. The buying experience in your store, on your Web site, or through your
catalog should be as easy as possible. Eliminate unnecessary paperwork and forms, help
people to find what they need, explain how products work, and do whatever else you can to
facilitate transactions.

[EntrepreneurHub1]

Right now I am in the process of starting a promotion and printing company. I'm a home-based business so customer service is going to be very important. We want to provide a quality product and make our delivery time fast enough for our customers needs. Overall, I think it comes down to the basic rule that if you please the customer they will keep coming back. Treat customers the way you would want to be treated as a customer.

[ChrisHeggem]

What are your favorite tools to deliver customer support? What do you all use?

[Bliss Ellison]

Customer Support Service is very integral element for your business venture and delicate at the same time.
First, you have to line up the best qualified resources for your customer support department. Then you have to provide them the thorough training about your business services, products, tips, pros, shortcomings and the way to recover it gracefully.
Its up to an entrepreneur that how he manages the customer support. If you are providing the live chat facility, then make sure its quick responsiveness.
Moreover, telephone calls and email system are also the traditional approaches.

[Daniel Smith]

Hi,

The first thing you need to determine is, is the customer right? Is your work unprofessional and crap? If it is, then apologize, fix it as soon as possible and then apologize again. If you do it quickly enough and the work is good enough they might use you again.

Customers (managers) instinct is to avoid problems. That is why they hired you in the first place; hire an expert and avoid problems. But they've hired you and now have more problems than they did in the first place. This is what you need to fix. In fact the quality might just be the proverbial "last straw.

If you have people reporting to you who are doing the work, you need to be as demanding with them as your customer has been - not the rudeness but demanding the level of quality. If your employees are not doing a quality job they are costing you business and are in effect stealing money from you. Remember, they are selling their services to you and you need to act accordingly.

Assuming that the customer is wrong then you need to decide, how important that customer is to your business? 20% of your customers give you 80% of your problems. You need to determine which customers make up that 20% and decide if they are worth the trouble. If not, then you need to discourage them from doing business (by not giving them priority service, for example). And always remember, your suppliers are making this same decision about you.

Regards,
- Daniel Smith
______________________
Maxaudience.com

[MMarley]

What are your favorite tools to deliver customer support? What do you all use?

Email, instant messaging (various protocols), support form and forums.

[UTXtrade.com]

Customer service/sales in a need in every single business out, no matter what people say. We are all in sales, whether we know it or not.

[craigedill]

I think that customer service is always important. With bad customer service, you will end up getting a bad reputation for your business and loosing a lot of customers.

[BarbaraKParker]

Further customer relationship management teaches the business where there are flaws in the system and provides valuable customer feedback. When a business receives feedback, it is able to see the customer's image of the organization and the impression of its services. This tool is invaluable in correcting systems as well as image management for the business. It is also an outsider's perspective, which provides the business owner or management a unique insight.