VIP Customer Service
Appeared in Texas Petroleum and C-Store
Journal, July-August-September 1999
During every business transaction your customer makes
two decisions. The first is the current buying decision. The second is
whether to do business with you again. The service your customer
receives is the foundation for the second decision. In the chain of
a customer’s experience, if you get it right, you can erase a customer’s
previous bad memory. If you get it wrong, you are going to erase all
the good service you’ve given your customer. Realizing the sales
potential of your customer service is what VIP Customer service is
about.
What makes it so hard? Customers
do not distinguish between you and your company. Consistent with our
fast-paced business world, customer service is a moving target. Customer
expectations are increasing since customers are richer and better
educated. Retail customers are expecting better customer service
since suppliers have raised the benchmarks for quality with better process
management. Industrial customers value good service more than retail
customers do because they are influenced by global business. They
can quantify the costs of poor service and they must serve their own
customers.
VIP Customer Service Providing VIP
Customer Service means understanding what your customers value,
showing interest, and demonstrating performance in a variety
of situations. Did you know that researchers at Texas A&M found
that customers evaluate service quality on 5 factors? They are
reliability, responsiveness, assurance, empathy and tangibles.
Knowing that your customers value these dimensions, are you doing the best
job of meeting their expectations?
Showing interest is as simple as greeting your regular
retail customers by name and by sending articles of interest to your
commercial customers. Listening is a skill that is critical to show
your customers that you are interested in them.
What kind of performance helps a customer decide to do
business with you again? Credibility, reliability and anticipation of
customer needs are the keys to a successful sales relationship. Your
credibility comes from every action a customer sees. You have the
opportunity of gaining or losing credibility with each promise you make to
a customer. Think of the salespeople you know who over promise and under
deliver. These people make it harder for you to do your job. Treat
everything you say as a sacred promise to your customer. Returning
phone calls, sending information, following up on details are all part of
the promises you are obligated to keep.
Every customer values reliability. Nothing is
worse to a customer than dealing with the unexpected. When you say
you will find out, you earn more relationship value points. Tell
your customer when you will get back with him, but do it faster than you
promised! Needs are different for each type of account. What is
important to a retail customer might be different for an industrial
account. Do you know what is important to your customers? Have
you asked them? You should understand the critical issues for each
type of your customers. You must anticipate the needs of your
customers and provide what they value. When you know what is
important to them, you can help them meet their business needs.
As you inventory the products you sell, how about
adding VIP customer service? Your long-term customers want to buy
it. What a shame it would be if you were out of stock.
Maura
Schreier-Fleming is President of Best@Selling (www. BestatSelling.com).
She works with technical sales professionals and business professionals on
skills and strategies so they can sell more and be more productive at
work. Her column 'Selling Strategies' appears in The
Insurance
Record.
(c) Copyright 2004 Maura
Schreier-Fleming. All rights
reserved.
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