5 Awesome Customer Service Tips For Your Small Business.

Customers Are the Bread and Butter of any Business. 

“There is a spiritual aspect to our lives — when we give, we receive — when a business does something good for somebody, that somebody feels good about them!”

Ben Cohen, Co-Founder Ben & Jerry’s

Customer service isn’t as simple as a smile and good service, especially these days with all the social networks dominating the world with split second global sharing.

It is important to remember that customer service should be amazing before, during and after a purchase or service has been completed. The perception of great customer interaction is dependent on employees who can adjust their attitude toward to personality of the customer or client.

From the point of view of an overall sales process engineering effort, awesome service plays a vital role in the way that a business can generate income or revenue. It should be a core part of your business development and part of your approach to systematic improvement.

One good customer service experience can change the entire perception a customer holds of your entire business.

5 Awesome Customer Service Tips

1. Give Your Employees Power
   No one likes being told that a business can do nothing to help them, this type of answer often and will give your business a bad name. To help prevent this allow your front line customer service staff some basic powers to try and amend the problem – Like offering a good will gesture or a discount. – Its a simple way to prevent problems from escalating and makes your business look well run and efficient. Quick and easy.

2. Promote Flexibility
   Small business’ have a prime ability to change things in order to meet the customers needs, yet so many refuse to work in a way thats outside the norm. What if a customer asks for something off the menu? Or would like to structure a payment which is outside of your comfort zone? Instead of setting these things in stone, why not allow your employees to adapt to these new situations? You may even find a more efficient way of working.

3. Respond To All Feedback – Positive and Negative
   No one likes to hear bad things about themselves or their business. However, if you approach these situations with an open mind you can learn a lot about peoples perceptions of your business; is a pattern beginning to emerge that you need to address? Are many customers facing the same problems? Look at how to make this information work for you, as apposed to against. Don’t make knee jerk reactions in these situations, use your judgement and act accordingly.

4. Do The Unexpected
   This one is really simple, how many times do you walk into a store and make a purchase? I’m guessing for most of us it’s nearly every day, whether its groceries or household items. Now imagine if you received a hand written note from the store manager a few days later, thanking you for your purchase and offering a return discount. How gobsmacked would you be? This type of service is pure gold to customers and clients, the art of handwriting notes has experienced a unfortunate decline since the dawn of emails and instant messaging. However you can now use this golden oldie to score some serious brownie points with customers.

5. Offer Live Chat Services
   This one applies more to the companies who have a regularly monitored website, but there is absolutely nothing stopping a freelance engineer from using this service via instant messaging or email. The idea is easy to implement, simply add a live chat option on your site, this is usually indicated by a contrasting button on one edge of the customers screen that simply says ” Chat Now” the customer can then chat direct to you about your product or service.
   Its a priceless option that should never be missed in 2016 and beyond.

So there you have it!

5 Ways to go out and provide world class service to your customers. Now its up to you to go change the world with your awesome customer services!