If you desire to be truly successful, you must grow your company through the attraction and retention of customers. If you intend to take your company to new heights — to rank among the exceptional — you must turn your attention to the level of care you and your team provide and the genuine relationships you build.
Think about the last time you received exceptional customer service. Reflect on the ways you enjoyed the moment — how pleasant it was, how satisfied you were, how good you felt and how the experience endeared you to the business. I’d venture to guess you’re likely to spend your hard-earned money with this amazing company again and will tell others about it, too.
Now, consider a time when you received a paltry customer service experience that left you feeling uncared for, unsatisfied and unhappy. Left with a bad taste in your mouth, it’s likely you won’t do business with this company again. If you haven’t already, you’ll advise friends and family not to do business with it either.
As a business owner, which of these experiences do you want to provide your customers?
The primary ingredient in delivering consistently exceptional customer service is demonstrating first and foremost you care about your customers. Revenues are important, no doubt. But if you don’t truly care, you’ll earn less revenue than what’s possible or none at all. 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 the experience.
Here’s the key: To earn the loyalty of faithful customers, you — as owner — must first care deeply about them and the quality of their experience 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 sense 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 deeply and will treat each member of the team with consideration and respect. In turn, they’ll rise to the occasion and share this same good feeling with customers. The result will be 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, your products and the services you provide. Not only will you 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.
Having emerged from the social distancing imposed by the COVID-19 pandemic, consumers are again visiting businesses. They’re filled with excitement, joy, hope and relief. Do you and your team meet them with gratitude and a desire to make their lives better? If you do and keep it up, you’ll build lasting relationships that benefit everyone.
Given all we’ve gone through together the past two and a half years, hopefully there’ll be more appreciation, gratitude and mutual respect for business owners, team members and customers. There’ll be no more taking others for granted now that we’ve been reminded we truly need each other.
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 they work for, they pass this feeling along to customers who in turn care about the companies and provide repeat business.
The ultimate key to your lasting business 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 full circle back to you.
