Take a moment to think about a time you received a paltry customer service experience — one that left you feeling uncared for, unsatisfied and unhappy. Given the bad taste in your mouth, it’s likely you won’t do business with that company again. Moreover, you’ll probably advise your friends and family not to either.
Now, recall a time you received exceptional customer service — the pleasant experience, the satisfaction and how endeared you felt. It’s extremely likely you’ll spend your hard-earned money with this amazing company again and tell others why.
As a business owner, which of these experiences do you want to give your customers?
The question is more important than ever. We’ll soon emerge, at least to some degree, from the social distancing required to slow the spread of the coronavirus. Consumers will return to businesses with excitement, hope, joy and relief.
Will you be ready to greet them with gratitude and a desire to make their lives better? If you do and keep it up, you’ll likely build lasting relationships that benefit everyone.
If you desire to be truly successful, you must focus on growing your company through the attraction and retention of customers. If you intend to take your company to new heights — to become exceptional — you must pay attention to the level of care you and your team provide and the genuine relationships you build.
The primary ingredient in delivering consistently exceptional customer service experiences is demonstrating first and foremost you care about your customers. Revenues are important, no doubt. But if you don’t truly care, revenues will evaporate.
The difference between an exceptional customer experience and an awful one lies in the level of care provided to the customer by each person in your business who contributed to that experience.
To earn the loyalty of faithful customers, you — as the owner — must first care deeply about them and the quality of their experiences with your business. Caring is expressed in both word and deed and is a direct byproduct of the attitudes and behaviors of the people who own and operate the company. Whether you truly care about your customers or not, they can feel it.
As a business owner with a profound and innate level of caring, you’ll bring back as many team members as you can who also care deeply and treat each member of the team with consideration and respect. In turn, they will rise to the occasion and share this same feeling of happiness with customers. The result will be exceptional experiences.
Given what we’re going through together, hopefully there’ll be more gratitude, appreciation and mutual respect for business owners, team members and customers than there’s been in a long time. There’ll be no more taking one another for granted now that we’ve been reminded how much we truly need each other.
The more you and your team care about customers and consistently demonstrate it, the higher their level of satisfaction will be with you, your products and the services you provide. You’ll not only become the primary solution to fulfill their purchasing wants and needs, you’ll also become the well-deserved recipient of their gracious comments and referrals.
The ultimate key to your lasting success lies in a simple and timeless rule: Treat people the way you want to be treated. In fact, better is a superior choice. The only way to achieve this is if you truly care. How deeply you care will determine the amount of business that comes full circle back to you.
Here are two main points to remember. When business owners care about people, they position their companies to create happiness and satisfaction as well as profits. When team members feel truly cared for by the owners and managers for which they work, they pass this feeling along to their customers, who in turn care about the company and provide repeat business.
