A business cannot sustain competitive advantage for long time based on product and price alone. Competition eventually will find a way to beat you on that game. Competitive advantage built on customer service, however, cannot easily be copied. For proof look no further than Zappos.com. Here is an E-commerce company that sells shoes, of all the items, on the Internet. However, with a laser like focus on customer service it is selling a billion dollar worth of them annually!
After consulting with number of small business owners over past several years we have come up with a 7-step process that companies need to adopt to achieve the success enjoyed by Zappos. It will not be easy to follow these principles all the time and success will not come overnight. However, when you do master them you will have a lasting success that your competitors will find difficult to beat.
- Hire employees with great people skills
Your employees play a pivotal role when it comes to providing great customer service. After all, they are the ones who face customers everyday and interact with them. You need to focus on the attitude when hiring employees. You can always teach skills to your employees; but cannot adjust their attitudes. Spend time in evaluating them before making final hiring decision and if you find that they are not a good fit for your company; don’t wait too long to let them go. As one of the HR consultant I met this week said – “be slow to hire; but quick to fire.” - Set an Example
While employees will make customer service happen; it is ultimately owners’ responsibility to set an example by treating your employees and customers well yourself. Monkeys see, monkeys do! If you are not willing to do treat your employees the way you want them to treat customers do not expect good results. - Measure it
You cannot improve something that you cannot measure. You need to determine the metrics that will help you understand how you are doing in customer service. Different industries will have different ways of measuring it; but there are some common measures that everyone can use – customer complaints, number of repeat customers and so on. - Seek Customer Feedback
In addition to using hard numbers you need to seek informal feedback and hear stories from the customers first-hand. The numbers can only tell you so much. The stories will shed light on the underlying problems affecting the metrics. - Communicate, communicate, communicate
We cannot overemphasize the importance of communicating with your customers. Just as in marriage; lack of communication can lead to mistrust and eventually to separation. The Internet has made it easier than ever to communicate with your customers on a regular basis. If you are not utilizing social media tools you are missing out on great opportunity to improve customer satisfaction. - Under promise, over deliver
This is the basic principle of customer satisfaction. Do not promise something that you cannot deliver. Even better – delight your customer by over delivering on your promise. - Build a customer-centric culture
A great customer service culture should permeate throughout your company. Customer service is not a department, it’s an attitude. Once you have integrated customer service in all aspects of your business it becomes second nature to provide great customer service. We know, it is easier said than done; but it can be done.
If you have achieved success with customer service let us know how you have done it. Which principles did you find most useful?
