Remember the last time you received exceptional customer service. How did you feel?
Chances are, the experience was pleasant, satisfying and endearing. Moreover, you’re likely to spend your hard-earned money with this business again and recommend it to others.
Now, consider a time you received paltry customer service that left you feeling uncared for, unsatisfied and unhappy.
Given the bad taste left in your mouth, it’s likely you won’t do business again with this company. You’ll advise friends and family to avoid it as well.
As a business owner, which of these experiences do you want to give your customers?
We’ve finally emerged from the COVID-19 pandemic and social distancing. Consumers are visiting businesses with a sense of relief and excitement. Are you and your team greeting them with gratitude and a desire to make their lives better? If you do — and keep it up — you’re likely to develop lasting relationships that benefit everyone.
If you truly want to become successful, you must focus on attracting and retaining customers. If you intend to take your company to new heights — to rank among the exceptional — you must pay attention to the level of care you and your team provide and genuine relationships you build.
The primary ingredient in delivering consistently exceptional customer service is demonstrating you care about your customers first and foremost. Revenues are important, no doubt. But if you don’t care, revenues will evaporate. The difference between an exceptional customer experience and an awful one lies in the level of care provided by each person in your business who contributed to that experience.
Here’s the key: To earn the loyalty of customers, you as the owner must first care deeply about them and the quality of their experiences with your business. Caring in business 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 hire as many team members as you can who also care and then treat each member of the team with consideration and respect. In turn, they’ll rise to the occasion and share this same feeling of happiness with each customer. The result will be an exceptional experience.
Given all we’ve gone through over the past 18 months, there should 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 each other for granted now that we’ve been reminded we truly need each other.
The more you and your team care about customers and consistently demonstrate it, the higher their level of satisfaction with you and the products and services you provide. Not only will you become the primary solution to fulfill their purchasing wants and needs, you also will become the well-deserved recipient of their gracious comments and referrals.
Here are two main points to remember:
1] When business owners care about people, they position their companies to create happiness and satisfaction as well as profits.
2] When team members feel truly cared for by the owners and managers for which they work, they pass this feeling along to customers — who in turn care about the company and provide repeat business.
The ultimate key to your lasting success lies in a simple and timeless rule: Treat people the way you want to be treated, and 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 back full circle to you.
