"Gaining a Competitive
Edge with
Customer Service"
"Next to your product itself, excellence
in customer service is the single most important factor in
determining the future success or failure of your company."
-- David Schreiber, President of The Customer Relations Group,
Inc., an Atlanta-based consulting firm
Surveys have shown that when customers
are dissatisfied with customer service, they walk ... and
they talk. They tell eight friends if the service was good
and twenty if the service was bad.
Arthur Andersen & Co. reports that
seven of ten complaining customers will return if the complaint
is resolved in their favor, while 95% will return if the complaint
is resolved on the spot.
Customer service is not just limited
to "please's" and "thank you's." It includes
elements such as speed, quality, personal service, accessibility,
and flexibility. It extends to such things as carrying out
groceries to the car to answering questions about your monthly
statement.
A customer service area that I
personally find lacking is returning phone calls or in the
case of the Internet, answering e-mail messages.
It's an ongoing mystery to me why
people put a link on their website that says "Contact,"
or they have a cute little animated mailbox that says "E-Mail,"
and you click on the link, send your message, and then wait.
And wait. And wait. I'm not talking minutes here. I'm talking
days ... even weeks ... of waiting for a reply that never
comes.
Ironically, I know of a gentlemen
who sent an e-mail to the webmaster of an auto-responder website,
and he still hasn't heard anything. Not even an automated
response!
Unfortunately, there are too many
companies who think they are doing something special for the customer when they provide good service. What they
need to realize is that a satisfied customer = a repeat
customer = more money in the bank.
Whether your business is in the
"real" world or the "virtual" world, if you
want to gain a competitive edge, make customer service a part
of your daily operations.
Nan Yielding has nearly 10 years experience as an online business owner. She is the owner of Writing-Etc.com and offers internet marketing services and assistance to help website owners attract more customers and increase sales.
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