According to the semi-annual survey of small business owners, conducted by the American Express OPEN Small Business Monitor, offering excellent customer service is the #1 management tactic during this economic down-turn. I found this tidbit of information in the American Express OPEN forum article by Anita Campbell, “Planning, Prepping, Buckling Down, Taking Action“. The article states that 86% of the small business owners surveyed will place extra emphasis on offering quality customer service during these tough economic times, up from 77% last fall.
I can definitely see how great customer service can help your small business stand out from the competition. My question is though, “Why is exceptional customer service only valid when you’re facing an economic crunch?” As business owners, shouldn’t we always strive to offer the best service to our customers? Just a thought but, would these companies still be scrambling for business if they offered exceptional customer service all the time? When this economic crisis lessens, let’s keep the new tactics we implement now and continue them into the years to come. Let’s not wait for another economic down-turn to wake us up to the importance of our customers and their loyalty.
Good point! Many businesses that strive for growth will spend too much time trying to attract NEW customers without paying much attention to KEEPINg existing customers. Now, when new customers are scarce, existing customer loyalty comes front and center. Of course it should have always been there, but as many business owners know, sometimes certain priorities overtake others depending on the state of things.
[…] Small Business CEO had a short blog about offering exceptional customer service up today, and this is something I’d meant to post about. […]
We went through a discussion recently and decided to lower the level of customer service being offered.
The previously prevailing philosophy had been very similar; that by providing the best customer service possible, we were making more money, even if it wasn’t possible to measure. However, this is really only the case when you’re making a product where you have direct competition making a very similar product at similar prices. Computer manufacturers are a great example of this. They all use pretty much the same parts to put together computers and sell them at similar prices. It’s a situation where the company’s reputation for customer service can easily change a customer’s purchase choice.
If you don’t have a competitor selling similar products at a similar price point, there are other factors that will be influencing a customer’s choice more than customer service. Nobody makes a product with the same features at a similar price point (most cost approximately ten times what ours does and are intended for professional use rather than consumer use, or they’re just not much fun to use) so it really wasn’t necessary to be providing higher levels of customer service. Essentially we’re the only game in town. People don’t buy something they don’t need just because the company provides great service. So now we’re providing adequate customer service and redirecting those resources to areas of the company that will be better able to make use of them (development and marketing).
Now, just because we’ve lowered standards doesn’t mean that we are offering poor customer service. We still offer what we believe to be (and would expect as customers of other companies) an acceptable level of customer service. Under the old philosophy we called back every single missed call, whether that person left a message or not. We still call back every person that leaves a message; on the first business day we’re open if they call on a weekend or holiday, and within a few hours if they call during business hours. We just don’t do all the extra calling to people that don’t leave messages.
If at some point a direct competitor emerges, we can channel some of those resources back into customer service. We already know how to do it, so it’s just a matter of re-implementing some of the lapsed policies.
Keeping existing customers is unfortunately taken for granted by small business owners in striving for a new set of customers. Well, good point presented by Anita in her article.
You should always have good customer service. You never know how the happy customer will spread the good word. The downside is if a customer is treated badly, he or she could talk to her friends and contacts and you will not get them as new customers, that is for sure. But the main point is that a business transaction is between two parties and you trade value for value. The customer should understand the producer side of the market and behave accordingly. I have had customers who thought that they could get something for nothing, but then I had to teach them a lesson and explain why they should pay for the service / product.
Exactly, Martin! It is also our duty to educate our customers with such things. Just like the very popular cliche: “There’s no such things as free lunch.”
I agree, Bianca.
Thanks for your great post. Absolutely very usefull for me.
Great service only happens when a company puts the customer’s needs first. Find out what makes their life easier and do it. You don’t have to “WOW” them every second of every day. Focus on them, look them in the eye, do what you promise, and find small ways to surprise and delight them occasionally. Companies that truly perform customer service do these things consistently, in both good times and bad. And they tend to have fewer and shorter “bad times” than everybody else because of it.