Your business is more than just products and profits; it’s also about the customers who make it all possible. Keeping them foremost in your mind will make the products and profits a lot easier to come by.
In “Uplifting Service: The Proven Path to Delighting Your Customers, Colleagues, and Everyone Else You Meet,” author Ron Kaufman discusses best practices for making customers the focus of your business. In many ways, delivering great service and building consumer loyalty is about constantly thinking the way customers think: anticipating how they make decisions and planning and responding accordingly.
So start by buying your products or services as if you were a customer. Seek out — and remove — roadblocks in online and person-to-person experiences.
Model good customer service for your employees; don’t just tell them to do it. And dress the part when you meet with customers.
Measure what matters. Focus on meaningful numbers such as satisfaction levels and loyalty scores. Keep it simple.
And ask job candidates about their own customer philosophies. Consider those with fresh, constructive insights as your top contenders.
Adapted from Ten Ways to Build a Customer Culture at Baseline Magazine.