Explaining the 'Professional Cuddle'!

Customer service is the foundation of all the work we deliver at Saward Marketing & Events. Customers receiving a positive experience has become the best marketing tool many of us have, especially within the current changing landscape of GDPR.

My focus, even during my earlier roles as a professional, has always been to ensure that I am able to 'feel' and 'understand' what a customer/client wants, as well as how best to offer that service.

The individuals that work with me, and for me, have taken these values on board and with the correct support and training have learnt to identify and deliver the key elements I look for when delivering a service.

To ensure you are able to deliver an effective experience for your customers, I believe there are a number of areas you have to consider. These aren’t rocket science, but here are some of the key areas that I choose to focus on.

1)    Know your own product or service.

A customer is coming to you due to the fact they need your experience and support. Be sure to know what you are talking about! You don’t get a second chance to make a good first impression.

2)    Be honest.

Many of my customers know me to be brutally honest, we'll even laugh about it! I’ll even tell them if I don’t think they should be exhibiting at an event. This does mean I am losing potential work. However, I have always looked at developing long term relationships with people and if I’m advising them to ‘waste’ money, this will affect budgets that are potentially available when the right opportunity comes up. There is a way to deliver this feedback without sounding dismissive though, so be careful to communicate effectively.

3)    See people in person.

Given I work with people from all over the world this isn’t as easy as it sounds. However, I don’t like to hide behind an email or phone call. Video conferencing is a useful compromise, but there is nothing quite as good as a traditional handshake and face to face meeting. Even if it’s just by way of a short introduction. You can then progress projects with a good understanding of the individual(s) you are communicating with.

4)    Listen.

When you are talking about an area of your own expertise it is often easy to run away with the conversation and forget to properly listen to the customer. I for one, can get very passionate about an idea, but I will always stop and recap, to ensure I have captured everything that was requested. Listening is a skill that I feel is most undervalued in everyday life and technology has developed to a stage that due to texting, Snapchat, WhatsApp etc. we often don’t get to listen to the emotion behind the words we hear or see.

5)    Feedback.

It’s important to always learn from an experience. Whether it’s been a positive or negative one. If you’re focused on delivering the best possible customer experience of your service, you must ensure that you never get complacent. Customers will often comment that they can see that I’m already planning their next show, even during one that is currently running. I take that as a compliment, as I am! I begin to identify ways we could have done things differently, or areas that I want to suggest and adapt for the future. You can never stand still in an ever-changing market.

So, what’s all this got to do with the ‘professional cuddle’ I hear you ask. Well the term came about years ago. I was trying to explain to an American colleague what I was trying to offer my customers from the service we provide. The best way I could describe it was a ‘professional cuddle’. That's not because I wanted to hug everyone, but was because the comfort and reassurance you get from 'a cuddle' is exactly what I wanted to provide all our customers with, in the professional environment we work!

Would love to hear others thoughts on the subject, from their own experience and professional working environments.

Kind Regards

Jack

www.saward-me.com

[email protected]