By Donna Toothaker
Personal service is the best way to build strong relationships with customers. When you provide excellent customer service, you are paving the way towards lasting relationships and gaining loyal customers for life.
What is the key to great customer service? Consider the Zappos model.
If you buy shoes, and shop online, you’ve probably heard of Zappos. With sales of more than $1 billion (up from $70 million only five years ago) Zappos is the premier online shoe store, offering thousands of shoe styles, handbags and apparel from their Kentucky warehouse. Aside from their abundant inventory, much of Zappos’ success is due to its stellar customer service.
Masterful telephone service is central to Zappos’ strategy. The company’s personalized approach – making an emotional connection with the customer — sets it apart from other online shoe stores. Call center employees are single-minded in their mission to make the customer happy, and are given great latitude by the company to do whatever it takes to please. There are no scripts, no time limits on calls, and no “robotic” behavior. As a result, Zappos retains thousands of extremely happy and loyal customers – attested to by a lengthy customer testimonials page on their website.
Customer service is only as good as its people. With a near-obsessive devotion to customer service, CEO Tony Hsieh goes so far as to test new hires to gauge their level of dedication. From the moment a new employee signs on, s/he enters a four-week training period that immerses the newbie into Zappo’s culture, strategy and keenness for its customers. About one week into the training, Zappos makes “the offer,” putting a $1000 bonus on the table for them to quit. That’s right, to quit! If the employee takes the offer, Zappos figures he or she doesn’t have the sense of commitment the company expects in its employees. That’s a pretty bold move, and it shows the depth of Zappos pledge to great customer service.
Are you emotionally engaged in your client relationships? How committed are you to providing superlative service? While Zappos goes to great lengths for their customers, there are smaller, effective ways, that you can develop great customer service:
E-Mail
As the most used internet application, e-mail offers a great opportunity to keep in touch with your clients and provide excellent customer service. Having a quick e-mail response time is imperative. When you are in the office, make it a point to have a 24-hour turn- around policy. When you are out of the office, auto-responders can serve as your mobile 24/7 customer service representative, until you can help the customer personally.
Privacy Policy
Although it may seem more a legal requirement than a facet of customer service, a well defined privacy policy is fundamental to setting the stage for a good customer experience. Your company’s privacy policy shows that you value your clients, and their business, enough to ensure that all their transactions and communications with you are confidential and will not be sold to a third-party. A strong, clearly-stated privacy policy is a crystal-clear indicator of a company’s integrity.
FAQ
Great customer service can be as simple as providing an FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions) on your website for your clients. An FAQ page saves your customers time, and helps them to find immediate answers to questions while freeing up your time to work on more essential tasks. Base your FAQ page on actual questions customers have asked. Also, for reference, check out the FAQ pages of competitors or popular sites in your industry. Your clients will appreciate having their basic questions answered in an easily accessible format.
Online Survey
An online survey asks your client to give their feedback, based on how your company is performing. The act of sending out a client survey indicates that great customer service is a company priority and that you care about your clients’ comments, concerns and suggestions. Websites like Questionpro.com allow the user to send out a 10 question survey, free.
Once survey results are in, you may go a step further and reply to your clients with a general email. You should thank them for their participation, inform them of any improvements or changes the company plans to implement, and highlight some of the positive customer feedback that your company received.
Cards and Small Tokens
As a small-business owner, you have the advantage of truly knowing each of your clients. Your client relationships already have an emotional connection that doesn’t exist in larger corporations. Your efforts to personally greet your clients on holidays, anniversaries or birthdays, by sending out cards and e-cards or giving a small tokens of appreciation, speaks volumes and translates to great customer service.
When great customer service is a consistent company practice, you will be rewarded with positive customer testimonials, recommendations and most importantly, customer loyalty!
About Donna Toothaker
Donna Toothaker is founder of www.1stVA.com, the highly sought-after company that provides online marketing support and services to the top nutrition and fitness professionals in the country. 1st VA specializes in assisting these professionals who wish to effectively build or improve their online presence. To discover how 1st VA can help your business – visit http://www.1stva.com.
