Improve customer service by following through

Note: This is the third in a series of six articles about improving your business’ customer service.

In the last installment of this series, we talked about treating your employees as consultants to improve customer service — by empowering them and encouraging their autonomy, they are more likely to transfer that positivity to the customer service experience.

Today, we want to talk about never being all talk and no action. It is completely appropriate to talk about how terrific your customer service is — as long as it actually is. Follow-through is a key component of maintaining good relationships with customers.

If you promise great customer service, your customers will expect it and will walk away very dissatisfied if their experience is subpar. This is of greater concern today than it was even a few years ago, as more and more people are turning to social networks like Facebook and Twitter to express their frustrations and share their negative experiences with a very large audience. Now, one unhappy customer’s experience is broadcast for the world to see.

Word of mouth, both online and off, can be your greatest strength or your greatest weakness. If they love you, they’ll let you know. And certainly if they don’t love you, they’ll let you know that, too. Therefore, making sure every interaction with your customers lives up to the standards that have been set forth previously is very important. Your customers will notice when you make them a priority.

This post is brought to you by the good folks at Dale Carnegie Training of Central & Southern New Jersey. We would love to connect with you on Facebook and Twitter @CarnegieJersey.

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