FAB-ulous Customer Service

Without a doubt, the biggest test of customer service comes when things go wrong. When they do, you have a perfect opportunity to build trust by sincerely bending over backwards to fix the problem. However, from the customer’s perspective, the biggest issue is not that a mistake has been made or problem exists. He is only watching to see if you will make every attempt to deal with the situation to his satisfaction.

Here are a few quick tips for preserving that sense of personal caring when you are interacting with customers:

Note: Thank You

Do you write thank-you notes?  If not, you should!

The bane of every child’s gift-giving experience is a necessity in today’s selling evironment.  What does it say about you as a salesperson if you send a customer a hand-written note thanking them for their business?  Or a hand-written note thanking them for a meeting?  It says that you value them as a person and they are not just another customer or commission source.

Read the Signs

There are so many things to think about during a sales call. Did you do a good job of establishing rapport? Did you ask good questions? Did you explain the features, advantages and benefits in a way that speaks to your customer’s needs? With so much taking place around you, it is easy to overlook one very important aspect of the sales process, the part where the customer begins to give off clear signals that he is ready to buy! That’s right; sometimes we get so focused on selling that we fail to notice when the customer is sold and ready to close the deal. If you continue to drone on and on much past this point, you can sometimes end up offending the customer and risk losing the deal. To avoid this embarrassing development, learn to look for these signs that your customer is ready to buy.

Processed Cheese

Food processors are amazing inventions. They can puree a pound of strawberries and bananas into a wonderful smoothie in no time; they can turn a batch of ice into the base for a slushy, refreshing beverage. Come to think of it, processing anything – with or without a food processor – tends to destroy individual characteristics in favor of unopposable conformity. It happens all the time in customer service, too. Your customer comes to you with what to him is a unique, personal need and too often it seems your only option is to press the puree button and conform him to the options your “process” says are available.

 

We all know “processing” customers can be bad for business. What are you doing to make customer service a positive experience for your customers?

 

Customers Have X-Ray Vision!

That is, they can see right through a sales pitch.  Consider an article we found at the Houston Business Journal website:

Good penny pinchers don’t trust big companies. We don’t believe their claims. We know the difference between a sales pitch and real life. We know that inside those walls, big companies are just as screwed up as we are! Probably worse.

Customers are more informed than ever.  Aside from personal experience like Mr. Marks talks about, this whole “internet” thing is actually catching on!  Customers can get prices, failure rates, and competitive options with relative ease, and sometimes the customer knows more about your product than your actual sales people (try asking the typical sales rep at Best Buy the different between a 1080p and 1080i HD TV – it takes less time to read it on Wikipedia).