The importance of customer service for retail businesses has long been appreciated, but having good skills for customer service can have a valuable impact on the organizational effectiveness of manufacturing concerns as well. Here are some reasons why customer service is so vital to your organization, along with some customer service tips for your business.
Customer Service Is a Culture
When you have an effective customer service system in place, it sends a message to your customers and your employees that your company takes pride in its work. The fact that a company takes responsibility for its products and is ready to back up its work by answering any concerns the customer may have sends a message to your employees that you value the work they do and expect the best out of them every day.
Customer Service Helps Your Business Succeed
The more business you do, the easier it is for you to do business. If you have multiple clients and capital coming in, you can grow the way you want to and you can afford to implement improvements that will help you succeed in the future. In the internet age, news of good customer service spreads fast.
Today’s consumer can’t wait to get on social media or product review sites and talk about their experience with a certain company. A good experience should mean more customers and more revenue for you, giving you more flexibility to grow.
Customer Service Helps Your Business Evolve
If there is something wrong with your process and it is affecting your customers, good customer service will enable you to find out more quickly. If your customers don’t feel comfortable communicating with you, they may just leave when their project or contract is finished and you may never know why. A good customer service system can tell you what the issues are so you can retain that customer and others who might have the same issue.
Tips for Good Customer Service
So how can you have a good customer service culture?
First, have a clear understanding of what good customer service means for your company. How does it translate into how you respond to complaints and how quickly you respond? How should your customer service point-of-contact interact with customers? Make sure you use clear and proven rules for giving the customer the best customer service experience possible.
Once the policies are in place, you need the right people to implement them. This should start from Day One. As soon as you interview a potential employee, you should find out how they feel about customer service and whether they understand and can implement your policies. Both new hires and existing personnel should receive quality training on your customer service policies so they can understand them and implement them automatically.
Finally, it can be a good idea to occasionally survey your customers on their experience with your customer service. If they’re happy, that’s terrific news! But if some common concerns or issues keep popping up, you can adjust accordingly.