I’m not doing a proper post today – instead I want to send you off to an excellent post over at Business Pundit that makes two key points regarding Customer Service and has a very interesting infographic as well.
Firstly, it’s entirely up to you how you want to balance profit versus quality of life and you probably will have to make a compromise one way or another. That’s not a bad thing and it doesn’t mean that you don’t value customer service. Just that you are realistic about what you can provide in the time you have available, about what your company provides its customers, and who you want your customers to be.
Secondly, there are loonies out there. It’s up to you how much time you’re prepared to spend on them. But be aware that while people who have a genuine gripe or just want to have a good customer experience will work with you to solve any problems – the loonies will not. The loonies may be vocal in their complaints – but you’ll probably never be able to satisfy them. If you do, it will be at a cost worth far more than the problem was worth. If you feel you need to be universally loved then by all means, go for it. If you want to use your time to work in your business and provide your regular customers with great service, you’re better off ignoring the permanently dissatisfied.
One last thing that you should really keep in mind when looking at the infographic, which is mostly concerned with customer complaints, is that it’s much easier to prevent the customer from having complaints in the first instance. So make sure you have your procedures and quality checks in place and make adjustments when necessary.
