EIGHTEEN

Provide Excellent Customer Service

Peter drucker wrote that “the purpose of a business is to create and keep a customer.”

How can you tell if the business is fulfilling its purpose in a satisfactory way? Simple. Customer satisfaction. The true measure of business success is that your customers are happy with their decision to buy from you, and are internally motivated to buy from you again.

The very best people and the best companies are obsessed with customer service. The customer is the most important single person in their thinking. Everything they do is organized to satisfy their customers better in some way.

Sam Walton once said, “We only have one boss, and that is the customer. And he can fire us at any time by simply deciding to spend his money somewhere else.”

Maintain Service Excellence

Your ability to develop and maintain a reputation for high levels of service excellence is the key to the growth and prosperity of your company and to success in your career.

The success of your business in the future will be determined by your quality ranking in your marketplace today. According to studies done at Harvard, the customer’s definition of quality includes both the product or service you sell, plus the way that it is sold and delivered.

Question: What is your quality ranking? On a scale of one to ten, how do you rank with your competitors in terms of the quality of your product and the quality of the way that it is sold, delivered, and serviced?

Four Levels of Service

There are four levels of customer service for any company:

1. Satisfy your customers. A customer who is satisfied with the product or service that you have sold and delivered is the minimum requirement for survival. But if all you do is satisfy your customers, your customers will be open to competitive offers, have minimum loyalty, and will seldom recommend you to others.

2. Exceed customer expectations. This is when you do something more than your customer expected and more than your competitors do, to differentiate yourself from them. Your ability to exceed customer expectations is the minimum requirement for the growth of your business. And remember, whatever you do to exceed customer expectations today will soon be copied by your competitor tomorrow.

3. Delight your customers. This is when you start to move into the arena of the fast-growth companies in your industry. You do something that not only exceeds expectations, but actually delights and brings a smile of happiness to the face of your customers.

A very successful high-class restaurant chain has its waiters come around to your table after the meal and offer a free after-dinner drink or a glass of port wine. This offer is both unexpected and generous. The last impression that people have as they leave that restaurant is one of customer service excellence. And they return again and again.

Often, after a sale, a senior executive of the company will phone to thank the customer personally for choosing to do business with the firm. This is another simple way of delighting your customers and setting them up emotionally to buy from you again and again.

4. Amaze your customers. This is when you do something that is completely beyond expectations and even beyond just delighting your customers. You actually amaze them in such a way that they tell others and talk about you to their friends.

Some years ago, the Denver branch of FedEx, whose promise is, “When you absolutely, positively have to have it overnight,” experienced a blizzard that closed the major roads leading out of Denver and made it impossible for FedEx trucks to deliver their letters and packages. They then did something remarkable.

Individual Initiative

Because the blizzard had closed the mountain passes, the station manager chartered a helicopter at a cost of about $8,000 to fly over the snowbound highways and deliver the FedEx packages to customers in Colorado Springs, landing in the parking lot of a major shopping center.

This was such an amazing demonstration of FedEx’s commitment to fulfilling its promise to its customers that the story was picked up by all the newspapers and featured on national radio and television. To this day, customers in Colorado still talk about the “grand gesture” of chartering a helicopter to deliver packages overnight.

Follow Up After the Sale

As a salesperson, you can exceed expectations and both amaze and delight your prospects by the way you follow up after the sale.

There are four keys to an effective follow-up:

1. Once you have taken the order, process the paperwork and get things moving quickly.

2. Keep the prospect informed. If there is any delay or problem at all, immediately contact the customer so that the person knows what is going on. Customers are understanding and accommodating, as long as you let them know. Practice the “no surprises” principle.

3. Send a thank-you card, note, or e-mail immediately after the sale. If it is a big enough sale, send a present of some kind, even if it’s only flowers, a box of chocolates, or—my favorite—a gift basket from a local company. This gesture is a powerful way to encourage repeat business.

4. Make sure that the last contact customers have with you is always positive. The last contact leaves the deepest impression. This is the one they remember the most. When you take the order, take the time to thank customers for buying your product or service from you and assure them that they will be happy with their purchase and that you will do everything possible to ensure this happiness. Tell your customers to call you at any time if they have any questions or concerns, and give them your private cell phone number. These are the kind of final impressions that amaze and delight your customers and cause them to come back and buy from you again and again.

ACTION EXERCISES

1. Decide upon one action that you can take to delight your customers during and after every sale in the future.

2. Decide upon one action that you are going to take consistently to make the customer’s buying experience even happier than it is today.