Business e-Book Collection September 2013 | Page 4
Improve your customer service
The statistics continually bear this one out – improved customer service means
improved business.
According to the 2012 American Express Global Customer Service Barometer:
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66 per cent of consumers state they will spend more with a company that
offers them excellent customer service
80 per cent expect a small business to provide a more personal customer
service experience than their large competitors1
Excellence in customer service should be an absolute priority for your business.
How do you provide this kind of service?
The Australian Customer Service Awards provide this advice:
“Connecting to your customers on an emotional level is the key to
establishing a lasting relationship with your brand. You must go
beyond simply delivering your product, and develop strong bonds
with your customers. It is essential that you provide a unique
customer experience by proactively anticipating your customers’
needs and expectations and exceeding them, every time.”
The site provides a huge list of ways that you can provide excellent customer
service, including:
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Always respect your customers time and opinion
Understand that customer satisfaction is based on loyalty, identity, values
and relationships
Special interactions keep customers coming back
Personalise your service to meet your customers’ needs
Always tell the truth
Love what you do2
You are possibly not the best person to judge the quality of your customer service,
since you are so close to the action. Consider hiring mystery shoppers or a
business consultant to come in and assess your customer service standard. They
can either do this in person, if you have a shopfront or over the phone if you are a
service business. But if you do this, be prepared to accept you might need to do a
little maintenance on your customer service standards.
1
2012 American Express Global Customer Service Barometer was carried out by Echo Global Research. They
interviewed 1000 people in terms of their customer service experiences. You can find the report here:
http://about.americanexpress.com/news/docs/2012x/axp_2012gcsb_us.pdf
2
http://www.serviceexcellence.com.au/content_common/pg-tips-to-delivering-customer-serviceexcellence.seo