Good service is not a fad, it’s always in style
If you own a business, outstanding service is an act of kindness you must always give your customers. Good service is not a fad, it’s always in style. Paying attention to lavish details, listening to customers and investing in employee motivation brings people back to you because they feel good.
Stay as close to your customers as possible. Service-with-care works for everyone. It costs five times as much to gain a new customer as it does to keep a current one. Studies show that 91 percent of unhappy customers will never purchase goods or services from you again. If you make an effort to remedy buyer complaints, 82 percent to 92 percent of your customers will stay with you.
Simply listen and respond to your customers as often as possible. The customer needs satisfaction, but keeps coming back to you because your concern has a positive emotional effect on him.
Following are the Seven Secrets of Success:
1. Hire people who like people. Train them and treat them well.
2. Have customers define kindness and have your employees provide it. Meet with your customers and ask them what they feel needs to happen for them to get good service. Raise your employees’ awareness level to meet the new kindness standards.
3. Attitude is everything. Hire folks who are kind and receptive to the service culture you’re trying to create. When interviewing them ask how they would react to some typical customer situations.
4. Train without strain. Invest in the caring concern of your employees by increasing their abilities to solve customer problems on their own. It will empower them and build loyalty to an organization that considers their professional growth.
5. Give employees stipends for saving the community money or institute a profit-sharing program. Incentive programs create an impetus for success.
6. Walk the walk and talk the talk. Give employees the latitude and power to make decisions that result in bottom-line customer satisfaction.
7. Recognize, affirm and validate your employees continually.
Source: ACTS of KINDNESS Copyright 1994 by Meladee and Hanoch McCarthy. Reprinted with permission from Health Communications, Inc. 3201 S.W. 15th Street, Deerfield Beach, FL 33442-8190 U
