Customer First: Must come from within. It is the most important tool to sale and keep selling
Every company in the world has the goal to provide the best possible Customer Service as a way to make their business sustainable and successful. Growth will come as a result of:
- Develop and maintain customers by
- Delivering products and services that add value
- With quality and optimal support which
- Creates an outstanding reputation that will
- Generate Referrals to bring
- New Customers
One of the less expensive and most effective ways to gain market share is by keeping existing customers and use them to gain other customers (The Referrals). In order to have excellency, it is not enough to have common sense or try our best or rely on education. Companies must have clear Process. A Process is defined by Business Dictionary as:
“Sequence of interdependent and linked procedures which, at every stage, consume one or more resources (employee time, energy, machines, money) to convert inputs (data, material, parts, etc.) into outputs. These outputs then serve as inputs for the next stage until a known goal or end result is reached.”
Having a Process allows to share a common language across the team, create a behavior that can be repeated and taught. Can be reviewed based on feedback, measured and improved.
Customer Service begins with the customer's greeting, the way we gather information to understand customer's needs, how we communicate and handle objections and problems, it is a behavior. People must feel it, live by it.
NO CUSTOMERS, NO SALE ==> NO SALES, NO BUSINESS
Another very important fact: Customer Service doesn't end with the Order and the Payment. The ultimate goal of a salesman must be to create long term relationships, take care of customers, maintain contact periodically even if there is no immediate sales.
Every member of a company should be vigilant to ensure every customer is receiving the very best treatment and, in the event, something is not working well or can be improved, communicate with management to review the process and improve it.
Customer First is much more than letters on a procedure's book or something we are evaluated on, it has to rule our behavior, we really need to appreciate customers otherwise, we won’t be able to survive as a company.
One of the most important parameters to measure in an organization is the level of Customer Satisfaction. We cannot assume, we need to survey, to ask and never reach a conclusion that we are doing everything fine without asking directly to the customer.
Finally, the happiness of our customers is greatly enhanced if we are happy. Managers must always ensure staff is comfortable doing their jobs otherwise customer's relationships will be affected.