FROM CUSTOMER SERVICE to REMARKABLE SERVICE

In today's highly competitive marketplace, customers are spoilt for choice and may demand more than just better product features, lower prices and ease of getting the product or service. After all, these benefits could be easily replicated by any other company, or improved upon by competitors with deeper pockets and more resources.

Good customer service is almost expected these days, and should rightfully be the bread and butter of your business. The way to truly differentiate yourself or your company has to go beyond providing good customer service to offering remarkable service, which is focused on securing customers' loyalty and trust, so much that they would remark about it to other people.

Remarkableservice is simply about forming a long term, personal relationship with your customers, making them happy enough to refer their friends to you - who may in turn become repeat customers themselves.

As a professional services consultancy, good customer service forms the lifeblood of our business. Here are some tips on what we have learnt in our relentless pursuit of delivering remarkable customer service to stay ahead of the competition:

1. ALWAYS DELIVER WHAT YOU PROMISE

The fastest way to lose a customer's trust is failing to live up to your promises. Building false expectations to close a deal and not delivering after only goes to show how much you value them or their business. Your reliability and credibility come into question, and you will soon find that your customers would have no qualms heading for your competitors. The equation is simple - you break your promise, you break their trust.

The president of a global entertainment company had to call an urgent meeting to reproach his sales staff for garnering a bad reputation for the organisation. Industry partners are calling his people bad "ASS" - bad "after sales service" in short. In no time, it became the joke of the town and was used as a point of reference every time someone talks about bad customer service.

Things we tend to take for granted such as honesty, deadlines, turning up on time and missing appointments could frustrate client / customers to no end. If the old marketing school of thought is under-promise and over-deliver, we would advise that you give the best you can offer (reasonable promise) and deliver on that.

2. ALWAYS GO THE EXTRA MILE

Tough competition in the market puts tremendous pressure on sales and service professionals to give their best, or rather the organisation's best efforts to service its customers and clients. The most outstanding sales and service people would usually even rise above that and provide remarkable service out of genuine passion for their work as well as their commitment in satisfying and delighting their clients.

For example, when a customer asks if you could recommend a nice dinner venue, don't just mention throw out any name. Give him a list of the best restaurants you can think of, along with their telephone numbers and addresses. Better yet, you could find out what type of cuisine he prefers, make relevant recommendations and offer to book the venue for them once they have made their decision.

The extra effort is more often not, a personal choice to provide remarkable service that is beyond your original call of duty. Sometimes people may not blatantly express their appreciation or gratitude for what you have done, but they will notice and remember that extra effort you have put in and tell other people about it.

3. ALWAYS PICK UP THE PHONE

In our line of work, any missed call will almost always translate to a lost business opportunity. Every single person in the office up to the managing director is personally responsible for answering phone calls, not just the receptionists. Especially in situations when there is a large volume of calls flooding the lines, the receptionists will have their hands full just attending to various callers and queries.

It may seem like a simple thing to do, but you would be surprised how often a call gets unanswered and as a result, your customers and clients would be seeking out other alternatives. The opportunity cost can be as trivial as being less inefficient in providing timely services to your customers, to as significant as losing a potentially high value client. On top of that, the difficulty of actually getting someone on the phone when you need them could be perceived as having poor service levels.

Remarkable service is about putting in place all kinds of support systems to ensure all calls are picked up and attended to, regardless of who the caller is and the significance of the call. If you happen to be out of office, forward your incoming calls to a colleague who can help you attend to the callers and take messages on your behalf.

It makes a lot of difference to customers knowing that their calls would most certainly be answered by someone when they call a certain company, and as a result, the company gains the faith of its clients and creates the perception that its people are highly effective and responsive.

4. ALWAYS TRAIN YOUR PEOPLE

The best laid plans are useless if the people executing them are not trained to roll them out. Educate them about the importance of putting customer service first, and give examples of how they can internalise great customer service so that it becomes an integral part of their work. Illustrate what is good service and how your staff can exceed that to achieve remarkable service by commiting to give nothing but their best, and not what benefit themselves most. Your people need to care about your customers as much as you do.

Be candid about what contributes to 'bad service' so that people are made more aware of the things they say, their reactions/responses and even their body language - which may unknowingly lead to misinterpretations by clients and customers.

Ensure that your employees are equipped with the proper knowledge and information they need to do their job better so that they will come across highly credible and knowledgeable. Remarkable service could also be easily achieved if the staff is empowered to make small customer-pleasing decisions, especially for service recovery should anything go wrong. When your people are not compelled to check with various layers of management in order to offer a temporary solution for a simple problem, it also means your clients and customers could be instantly gratified.

5. ALWAYS BE LOYAL TO YOUR CUSTOMERS

One of the most important customer service strategies would be to earn your customers' loyalty by being an equally loyal business partner. If you expect to achieve high customer loyalty, what are you doing to make sure it is reciprocal? What can you offer over and above your competitors to convince your customers that they should stick with you?

Do you listen to your customers? Do you admit your mistakes, accept your responsibilities and offer solutions that are valued by your customers? Do you know the names of each and every one of your valued customers, what their needs are, what is bothering them, what delights them or what they like to do in their free time?

Like any other relationships, the more effort you spend in looking after your customers, the better you would be at relating to them, and the more specific you would be at meeting their needs. Building a long term personal relationship with your customers requires consistent and significant investment of time, resources and analysis. When you show concern about what matters most to your customers, you are almost guaranteed a customer for life because you make them feel important.

A final bit of advice about customer service; "If you aren't taking care of your customers, your competition will."

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