Identify Your Ideal Customer Service Experience

Clearly, the customer is the most important individual involved in whether or not your business sustains itself. No matter how happy your employees, how amazing your managers, how solid your services – nothing matters if the customer doesn’t buy into what you’re selling. Now, don’t go ignoring your other efforts to focus solely on the quality of customer service – but DO prioritize it.

My simple customer service motto? Make the customer matter, otherwise your business won’t. Don’t believe me? Here are a few recent stats regarding the state of customer service:

• 89% of consumers began doing business with a competitor following a poor customer experience.
• 50% of consumers give a brand 7 days to respond to a question before they stop doing business there.
• 86% of customers will pay more for their experience.

Your customers decide how well you’ve defined your brand. And your customers determine whether your business is worthy buying into. For this reason, I’m going to be writing a series of posts that pay particular attention to the importance of exceeding all expectations when it comes to the customers’ experience. Leaders, managers, teams and employees all make a difference to how customer service is done – so wherever you’re at on the totem pole, rest assured you’re critical to the customer’s experience.

Today, my focus is on how well managers have defined their ideal customer experience. The reason I start here is because it’s impossible to measure progress or compare experiences when you don’t know your goal. It’s also hard to get your employees on board to be better, if you can’t explain what that even means. How could you know what better is without a good grasp on the status of the current customer experience? There are a few ways to identify your ideal customer service experience.

#1. Do research. Read books and blogs from other businesses that have mastered this business battle.

#2. Get in your customers’ shoes. You buy products and services every day – you are a consumer yourself. Take an inventory of your own likes/dislikes and apply what’s relevant to your own business.

#3. Casually interview individuals that are part of your personal life. Talk with your family, friends, and other close acquaintances that have interacted with your brand. Get their take on what works, disappoints or altogether needs to change.

#4. Engage employees. Get feedback from those who work for you. Sometimes they are closer to the customers than you. By collecting insights from employees, you actively value their opinions.

Again, I’ll be blogging much more about the importance of customer service in this series – but for now, IDENTIFY YOUR IDEAL CUSTOMER SERVICE EXPERIENCE. We want to help you do this! To hold you accountable, we’d love to invite you to share one factor of your ideal customer service experience!