Marcus Straub
The more you and your team care about customers — and consistently demonstrate it — the higher their level of satisfaction with the products and services you provide. As a result, you’ll become not only the primary solution to fulfill their purchasing wants and needs, but also the well-deserved recipient of their gracious comments and referrals.
Take a moment to recall the last time you enjoyed an exceptional customer service experience. Reflect on the feeling you had in that moment. Recognize how pleasant it was, how satisfied you were, how good you felt and how the experience affected you and your day in a positive way. I would venture to guess you’re highly likely to spend your hard-earned money with this amazing company again and tell others about the firm, too.
Now, consider a time when you received a paltry customer service experience — one that left you feeling uncared for, unsatisfied and unhappy. Left with this “bad taste in your mouth,” it’s safe to predict you most likely won’t do business with this company again. If you haven’t already, you’ll advise your friends and family not to do business with the firm, either.
As a business owner, which of these experiences do you want to give your customers? Remember: 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.
The primary ingredient in delivering consistently exceptional customer service experiences is demonstrating you care about your customers first and foremost. Revenues are important, no doubt. But if you don’t truly care, the precious and highly desired revenue will evaporate.
Your main focus must be on growing your company through the attraction and retention of customers. The result will be a business that’s increasingly successful. 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 to the customers that grace your company with their business.
Here’s the key: To earn the loyalty of faithful customers, you as the owner must first care about them and the quality of their experience with your business.
A business owner with a profound and innate level of caring will hire team members who also care deeply and then treat each member of the team with ongoing consideration and respect. In turn, they’ll be happier at work, and their satisfaction will position them to share this same feeling of happiness with each customer. The result is an exceptional experience.
Caring in business is expressed in both words and deeds 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.
If, upon reflection, you recognize the level of care put forth by you and your team hasn’t positioned you to deliver exceptional customer service experiences on a consistent basis, it would be wise to take immediate action and seek out professional assistance to change this.
Over the years, I’ve helped many business owners, managers and team members from a wide variety of companies transform their customer service experience through the act of truly caring. This has resulted in better cultures for team members, superior experiences for customers and greater success for business owners.
In summary, 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.
The ultimate key to your lasting success lies in a simple and timeless rule: Treat people the way you want to be treated. 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.
So, how deeply do you care?
