Customer Service – Does Your Team ‘Know It’ or ‘Actually Do It’?

Would you answer ‘yes’ to any of the following questions:

1. Does your team sometimes miss project deadlines?
2. Are they sometimes trying so hard to please the client that they over promise?
3. Do they sometimes misunderstand the client’s priorities and so they over deliver on items important to themselves, but then under deliver on some items the client believes are critical?
4. Do they sometimes feel themselves torn between meeting the deadline and delivering work of excellent quality?
5. And does the deadline or the excellent quality usually ‘win’?
6. Does your team complain that clients just want more and more these days? And that they want more and more for less and less!
7. Do you pride yourselves on designing and delivering customised solutions for your clients?
8. Does your team find it difficult to gauge the resources, particularly the time required, to achieve and deliver these customised solutions?

A ‘yes’ response to just one of these questions indicates that, even with the best of intentions, you are failing your customers. And their disappointment with your lack of service will tempt them to look at your competitors. What can you do to keep them, apart from decreasing your price significantly?

Research shows, in fact, that clients will pay a 23% premium when they believe they receive excellent customer service. Conversely, they will demand a 13% discount if they don’t believe the service is exceptional.

And what is it that constitutes excellent customer service?

It means you deliver on your promises – deadlines are met, there is a high-quality standard, and your quality is very consistent.

It means you are proactive in your communication – you keep your clients informed about items that are important to them; you build and maintain strong relationships with your clients.

It means delivering excellent customer service, with every client, every time. And that includes the demanding or obnoxious clients too!

Of course, we usually ‘know all this’. We are, unfortunately, just not as good at ‘doing it’.

To your team’s success,