Hi, thanks for joining us today. We're answering the question, what is customer service and why is it important? The seven essentials to excellent customer service.
I'm David Brownley, president of David Brownley and Associates and founder of small businessrainingprogram. com and the seven secrets to a million-doll business. If you're a business owner or entrepreneur, you know how frustrating it can be when clients are not happy with your product or service.
Whether or not it's you or your company's fault. Especially with websites like Yelp and Angie's List, Google Reviews, customer service is more important than ever to get right. It can literally crush your business if you screw it up.
Within minutes, hundreds, thousands, or even millions of prospective customers can see your company's bad reviews. That's heavy. On the flip side, they can also see your good reviews, which is what we'll focus on today.
Providing excellent customer service that will exceed client expectations, give you loyal customers with repeat business, and eventually increase your revenues and grow your business. In this video, we're going to highlight seven essential elements to excellent customer service that will build that loyalty and repeat customers for you and your brand. You can do this by putting these essentials to work in your business today.
So, let's get started. Number one, be aware of the three things every customer wants when it comes to your customer service. Your customer psychology plays a key role in how they perceive your company's customer service.
First, your customers want to be heard. They want to be heard all the time, but especially when they have a problem with your product or service. When they express their concerns or desires, make sure you you and your employees understand this.
For example, if you have a customer that's just heated and steaming mad, just let them. A lot of times, that's all the client needs. They'll get it out of their system and they'll love you again just for listening to them.
It's amazing. Second, your customers want to be understood. Make sure that you or your staff ask questions and repeat and confirm your customer's concerns or needs.
Your company needs to fully understand your customer's situation. A lot of times miscommunication takes place and your staff is working to solve a problem that is totally off the mark and not addressing the issues your client actually has. So, you can see this is extremely important.
Number three, your client wants to be cared for. They need to feel important. You and your staff need to show concern for them and show an effort to solve their problem and accommodate their requests.
Regardless if they can accommodate them or not, depending on your company's policies, they want to see the effort being made. A lot of times, you won't be able to accommodate their requests, but the customer appreciates the effort. Moving on to number two of the seven essentials.
Write this down. S E C SEC. This is an acronym I came up with because it only takes a sec to do.
But it's so important in your customer interaction that it can make or break your sale and determine whether or not your customers will even come back. You have to remember it. S E C SEC.
It stands for smile, eye contact, and comment. Make sure you write this down. Smile, eye contact, and comment.
Smiles are contagious. When you're greeted by a smiling representative of a company that appears happy and glad to see you, and you know, it's your inst instinct to smile back. You're ready for your interaction with this company.
I mean, even if you've had a crappy day, and if the rep does it right, you will smile back. You may realize, "Oh, I'm grumpy. " and consciously wipe that grin off your face.
But your instinct is to smile back. And even when you're angry, you know, we expect subconsciously to be greeted by customer service reps, salespeople, servers in restaurants with a smile. Service with a smile.
We expect it. Although it's harder and harder to find that in companies, right? For example, I fly a lot and with everything that's been going on with the airlines these days with budget cuts, flight delays, increased security, etc.
Those folks that work for the airlines from the front desk to the flight attendants aren't always the nicest people to deal with. You know, I get that they're underpaid and lack of job security, etc. But simple smile and greeting would make all the difference in the world, right?
Even if they say the right thing, you know, welcome to Delta. We know you have a lot of choices when you fly. We're glad you picked us.
Where are you flying to today? You know, they're the right words, but when those smile, it doesn't make you exactly feel warm and fuzzy inside, does it? Okay, you get my point.
But this is huge. Next, make sure you or your reps make eye contact with the customer. Eye contact shows that you're ready to engage them and ready to help them in some way.
It shows you care about what they're about to tell you and you're listening to them. Make sure you use eye contact in combination with the smile, you know, because you don't want to freak anybody out, you know, just staring at them. Then you want to make a friendly comment to them.
It could be about the weather or light-hearted current events. You know, you can even compliment the client on either their clothing or some jewelry that you like, etc. But, you know, be sincere.
And fellas, be careful with your compliments to women. Keep it classy and not creepy. That's important.
The third element to excellent customer service is to listen to the customer. Remember, your clients want to be heard and understood. The only way to do that is to really listen to what they're saying.
Acknowledge what they said and repeat it back to them so you're sure that you're addressing the right issue. Many times, angry customers will stop pursuing further action on your part after they know they've been heard and that you care about them and their needs. It sounds too good to be true, but it is.
They sometimes actually feel guilty for causing you grief and will apologize to you at this point. When that happens, you know you're doing this right. Fourth, the fourth thing is to empathize with your customers that they're, you know, when they're having issues.
Really listen to what they're telling you and then confirm you understand what the issue is. Tell them, "I understand how you feel. I understand where you're coming from.
" Whether they're right or wrong, this will usually allow them to let down their guard a bit and calm down if they're really angry or dissatisfied. Even if you ultimately cannot deliver the exact outcome they're looking for by empathizing with them and their problem, they're more likely to accept a more reasonable solution. And that's best for everybody involved.
Fifth, create solutions for your clients issues and complaints. Consult your company policies, invoices, take a look at the customer's history, whatever you need to do to come up with a solution for them. A lot of times you have to get creative and do things that you may not have thought of before.
If a client is so dissatisfied with your company's product or service that the only remedy is to give a full refund, it will most likely be in your best interest just to do it. I'm not saying you want to lose money on a regular basis, but hopefully this occurrence is is rare, right? And if it's not, you need to make some serious changes in your organization.
You may need to hire a customer service training company to come into your organization and turn it around. In fact, a lot of companies turn to us, David Brownley and Associates, for customer service training when they don't have an adequate customer service training program in place. Now, when you hire us, we will come in, we'll assess your situation and customtailor a solution for your business.
This is extremely important. Sixth, clarify the situation with the client. You need to make sure that the customer is 100% satisfied once their issue has been resolved.
Review the remedy with them, then again gain agreement that the uh remedy is sufficient. You don't want to provide a solution for a client bending over backwards, you know, for them thinking they're happy and then find out later through Yelp or Better Business Bureau that the client actually was not satisfied with your solution. So clarifying the remedy for your client situation will save you a lot of grief.
And finally, seven, follow up with all your customers. You want to make sure each of your customers had a great experience with your company. Your brand's reputation depends on it and can affect future business.
So even though more companies are starting to follow up with clients after the sale, still most companies do not. It doesn't matter what industry you're in, they're missing out on referral business, repeat customers, and positive reviews. You can follow up with a simple phone call asking them one or two questions about their experience.
That alone will send your customers through the roof with excitement. I mean, they all they they'll realize, hey, this company actually cares about me. One of the three crucial psychological elements is that your customers need to feel cared for.
You know, like we talked about earlier, or you can send an email to them thanking them for their business. It's easy to put a survey in there, too. But if they were dissatisfied with your company, it may be too late to save the relationship.
So, if you do a survey, follow up with any clients that were dissatisfied immediately. It's less personal than a phone call, but if you've got a lot of customers and you know, then it may make better sense for you to follow up with emails. But I always suggest following up with clients with what's called a drip campaign via email after the sale.
Anyway, a drip campaign is an email they receive from you offering coupons, discounts, invites to special events, and company news. So, you want to say you want to stay in the minds of your past clients. For example, your drip campaign emails can go out once a week.
They can go out once a month or even once a quarter. Offer them something of value or interest. And if you provided them with excellent customer service, they'll buy from you again.
And then they'll tell their friends and their family and their co-workers to buy from you, too. You can set up drip campaigns very easily now with bulk email providers like Constant Contact, Eye Contact, Mailchimp, and others. They work pretty much the same way.
Explore which companies you like best. For more great strategies on marketing, watch my video, Four Essentials on How to Market a Company. So, let's recap what customer service is and the seven essentials to providing excellent customer service.
This will increase your customer loyalty, and get you more repeat business and referrals. One, be aware of the three things every customer wants. To be heard, to be understood, and to be cared for.
Two, memorize the acronym SEC. SEC, which stands for smile, eye contact, and comment. If you take away one thing from this training video, this is it.
Very important. And three, listen to your customers. Your clients want to be heard and understood.
Four, empathize with your customers. Confirm that you understand what they're feeling. Five, create solutions for your client's issues and complaints.
Six, clarify the situation with the client. Make sure your client is 100% satisfied with your remedy to their problems that they had with your company. And seven, follow up with all your customers with phone calls, emails, surveys, or drip campaigns.
I truly hope you got great value out of this video and learned something today to help you gain customer loyalty, referrals, and great online reviews. Please leave a comment below and I will personally be answering any questions you may have. For more information on how to achieve customer service excellence and grow your business, visit www.
sallusrainingprogram. com. For personal coaching or customer service training for your organization, visit www.
davidbrley. com. Thanks again for joining us.
I'm David Brownley and we'll see you next time.
