Customer service nowadays has reached a new strategic dimension and is no longer the straightforward customer service it was once, but targeted and personalized to each individuals requirements.
Traditional customer service will not necessarily translate into customer satisfaction if not implemented with the new strategic trends.
Nowadays customer service comes under a new name and is labeled as customer relationship management (CRM) and is being adopted by both smaller and larger businesses world-wide.
Advanced technology is being implemented to have wider access to information on customers with the use of database management tools and Internet access. This system should now become an integral part of all company’s customer service strategies.
You should implement customer service following three basic phases; initial identification of your customer, gathering as much information about the customer and offering your services.
Targeting your potential customers is essential, as you cannot waste time and money on customers who are not likely to be assiduous as far as purchasing your products or services goes. The following are some tips to help you target your valuable customers.
1. Think in terms of how much a customer will spend on your products and services and not on how much your market share is worth.
2. Make sure you know how to recognize customers that are no good wasting time on. Your potentially bad customers are those that only purchase products when they are on sale, or who will choose another company if the price is lower than yours.
Customers who are constantly complaining in order to receive extras are also not worth wasting time on, concentrate on the good ones, and pay extra attention to these.
3. How do you recognize good from bad? Prompt your customers to share information with you about themselves by offering them incentives. Offer them some free service or product in exchange for relationship questions.
This will provide you with essential information to get to know your customers in depth.
4. Take advantage of today’s technology to extend your research, such as internet where you can create a website with customer feedback and e-mail blasts to reach out to clients.
5. You can even join a customer service course to help you train your staff or yourself. These courses help employees understand how to listen to customers and pick up the important data in order to manage data and improve relationships between customer and servicer. After all, who can tell you more about a customer than the customer himself?
6. Surveys, focus groups and testing panels are excellent ways to get to know what it is your client expects from you. It is also essential you keep up your research work in order to keep your customer satisfaction level high.
7. To pinpoint any weak areas that need to be amended the best tools are large scale surveys, while customer satisfaction and mystery shopping surveys once you have sold the service or product are very useful to measure the clients satisfaction and update any data for enhanced performance.
However big or small your business is to handle customer service effectively it is best to prepare and qualify in order to achieve the best possible for your company.
