If you want to become truly successful in business, you must focus on growing your company through the attraction and retention of customers. That also means providing exceptional customer service.
Recall a time when you received a paltry customer service experience — one that left you feeling uncared for, unsatisfied, and unhappy. Left with a bad taste in your mouth, you likely won’t do business with that company again. And if you haven’t already, you’ll advise your friends and family not to do business with it either.
Now, take a moment and consider the last time you received an exceptional customer service experience. Reflect on the feeling you had in that moment — how pleasant it was, how satisfied you were, and how good you felt. You’ll likely spend your hard-earned money with this amazing company again and tell others all about it.
As a business owner, which of these experiences do you want to provide your customers?
If you intend to take your company to new heights — to be among the exceptional — you must turn your attention to the level of care you and your team provide and the genuine relationships you build.
To deliver consistently exceptional customer service, you must first and foremost demonstrate you care about your customers. Revenues are important, no doubt. But if you don’t truly care, revenues will lag behind what’s possible or even 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.
Here’s the key. To earn the loyalty of faithful customers, you — as the owner — must 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 team members who also care deeply and treat them with respect. In turn, they’ll share this same good feeling with customers. The result will be consistently exceptional experiences.
The more you and your team care about customers — and consistently demonstrate it — the higher their level of satisfaction will be with you and your products and services. Not only will you become the primary source to fulfill their purchasing wants and needs, but you’ll also become the well-deserved recipient of their gracious comments and referrals.
Are you and your team meeting customers with gratitude and a desire to make their lives better? If you do and you keep it up, you’ll build lasting relationships that benefit everyone, especially now as the economy tightens.
Given all we’ve gone through in the past three years, there should be more mutual appreciation, gratitude, and respect among business owners, team members, and customers. Reminded how much we need each other, nobody should take others for granted.
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 cared for by the owners and managers they work for, they’ll pass this feeling along to their customers.
Customers will 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 and success that comes full circle back to you.
