Day 10 – Customer Services
All businesses will deal with the public in one form or another. You could say your organisation is B to B (business to business) or B to C (business to customer). It doesn’t matter what terminology you use; you are all going to be dealing with people. As a result, you’re going to need customer service. Underestimating good customer services will be detrimental to your organisation.
Indeed, many websites promote businesses that have excellent customer service. For example, trust pilot, this site is where people write about the experiences they’ve had.
Get one critical review from an unhappy customer could damage the business reputation. It is now common to hear people write reviews on trust pilots. The business owner can reply to the the review or correct any wrong or nasty reviews, because of the enormous damage it can do to an organisation.
If you do not have excellent customer service within your business, then you will lose clients.
When I started my business, it was just myself and any issues that arose I could deal with instantly. When I took on staff, processes were not in place. I remember one incident one of my members of the team phoned me when I was sick to say that she’d upset one of my customers. She was worried that she couldn’t resolve his issue. It also turned out that they had an argument, and my staff member didn’t like the way he spoke to her, and I thought he was insulting. My client couldn’t understand why somebody in my employment would not do the work he had asked her to do. A complete breakdown in communications at that point in customer services was void. I had to speak to the employee and the customer to find out exactly what’s going on. It transpired that it was just a miscommunication of my employees not understanding his tone, narrative, and requirements. My client thought my employee was rude, obnoxious is unhelpful.
I still have this client working with me, and my member of staff has now moved on. Not that she was inadequate at her job. She was very good at her job—however, the terminology my client used and her attitude towards him breakdown. I had to nurture both relationships to ensure I kept both my employees and my client. As a result, a complaint procedure is in place for our customer services team.
What I have learnt about Customer Services
- Customers aren’t always right, but they like to think they are, and you need to stand up to your customer if they are wrong.
- It is easy to misunderstand terminology and tonality. There are times you need to step back to resolve the issue.
- The relationship between the customer and the business is delicate. The relationship should be nurtured.
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