Building the foundation of a business is a difficult task but ensuring that your business strives and grows is even trickier. If you are the owner of a business or if you are in the service industry you will understand the importance of providing good customer service. You will know that it is not good enough to display “good customer service”, it has to be excellent.
Any retail business strives for its customers and clients. It is a simple enough equation, poor customer service equals to poor business footlocker homeview. It might have become an adage by now, but the term good customer service will never lose its value. It is at the essence of any business to ensure that it gets the loyalty and goodwill of its customers because unless your old customers are happy, the new ones are unlikely to be.
But catering to the varying needs and demands of various customers, and ensuring that all of them go out of your outlet with a smile on their faces, is not an easy task. But once you manage to get the basics of providing “good” customer service, providing an “excellent” one will not be too difficult a task. The following tips will give you an insight into taking the first step towards maintaining a good customer base.
Good resources:
One common factor in all the successful food and restaurant businesses is there smiling and affable waiting staff. They will make you feel like kings and queens and will give you the best experience you can get. Having good resources at your disposal who understands your deliverables is very important for your business. If you are the only one who is looking after the business, you can ensure good service.
But when you have a pool of resources to look after it, you need to ensure that they are trained and experienced to meet the standards of your service. When all your employees are on the same page and have the same goal, i.e. to grow the business by growing the customer base, half of your job is done. Hence the first step to ensure that you are giving good service is to ensure that you have good service providers. They should be properly trained to give their best to the customers and follow the “customer is king” motto as much as possible.
Quality versus quantity:
Quality is the honey that is going to draw your customers. It is good to increase your product line but if you are looking at growing your business by simply doing that, it is not going to work. Not paying attention to the quality of the service you are providing; is going to be all the way downhill for your business. Quality of your products and service is what is going to ensure that your customers return back and at the same time bring more customers in for you. Word of mouth is an important aspect of the growth of any business and once you get bad publicity, it is difficult to get your lost reputation back. By providing good quality products and service you will be paving the way for a happy and satisfied clientele.
Understanding your customer’s needs:
A customer’s experience in your outlet should not be a hassle for him/her. The key to providing good customer service is to make the experience of your client an easy, smooth and hassle-free one. Understanding your customer’s needs will also ensure that you can cater to their needs at a future date as well.
Punctual and reliable service:
It’s an age of cut-throat competition and if you want your business to be known in the market for its good service, it should be both reliable and timely. If you are tardy and undependable it will soon come to a point where all your customers would have started to look elsewhere. In this age, no one has the time or patience to wait in line for anything, hence the promptness and reliability of your service is of utmost importance.
Managing customer complaints:
Customers are finicky people with their own set of quirks and demands. To always handle them to their satisfaction might not be a possible task and there might be a day when your best customer is also not happy with you. The key to handle an irate customer is to not take it personally. They might lose their temper and become surly but that does not mean you have to become angry too. You should ensure that you keep your cool at all times and handle the situation calmly. At the same time, there is no need for you to take any abuses or harassments from your client but wait for him to calm down before you give your explanations.
Promotions and freebies:
Everyone likes getting free goodies and there is no better way to promote your business than to provide freebies and promotional items. It is also a part of providing good customer service to entice them with free handouts. It will provide you good publicity, help to draw in new clients and also keep the old ones coming back for more. It is a good idea to keep ahead in the competition as well.
Personalizing the experience:
There are many ways to make a customer feel at home when they walk-in or simply call you on the phone. It can be something as small as remembering a client’s name or asking about his dog’s health care goatdee. All customers love to get that special treatment, no matter how small. When you can provide a memorable service to one single customer a day, it adds up to a whole lot of people in a very short time. You will get a word-of-mouth recommendation from each one of your customers, giving your business a valuable boost. Making all the above factors a part of your daily business life will ensure that you reach the benchmark of providing “excellent” customer service.
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