Are your customers at the heart of EVERYTHING you do in your business?

Make sure you are putting your customers FIRST every time!

Customer service is a commonplace topic of conversation in workplaces up and down the Survey form with a tick placed in Outstanding checkbox.country, especially at this consumer focused time of year! However, for me, customer service is much more than just good, polite service. Customer service for me is about looking at EVERYTHING you do in your business and ensuring that every step of the way customers are at the forefront of your thinking.This can be anything from the way your clients make reservations online to how well equipped your staff are to answer client calls or even the type of coffee you stock to make for your customers at meetings.I love working alongside clients to analyse their processes and re-evaluate them in a way that will not only assist customer service but in turn improve the profitability of their business by helping them to maintain and attract a bigger client base.

The Customer Journey 

Over the last few months I have been working with one of my clients to examine their entire customer journey, which has included a number of different steps including;

  • Initial Assessment of Current Situation
  • Goal/Objective Setting
  • Team Customer Service Training
  • One to One Coaching
  • Creation of Product Documents
  • Designing a programme of ongoing team engagement in the journey
  • Ensuring that there is a framework for both internal and external feedback in place
  • Senior Team Development
  • Measuring Impact of Training

This will hopefully enable you to see the depth that analysis of your customer service can go to, however, conversely I always tell clients if they can do one single thing differently for their customers then that can also make a profound difference. We at Brightside Planning can help you however big or small your idea or query.

Your Plans for 2014 
Whatever you are planning for your business in 2014 can you honestly say you have always put the customer at the heart of it? A few simple questions to consider:

Have you thought about how your Christmas working hours are impacting your customer service?
How your new database assists the service you can provide?
How your staff training needs may be limiting your people going the extra mile?
The sum of all parts can have such a big impact and if I can get across one thing in this blog it would be to step back from working in your business and take that ‘on business’ strategical view of your organisation to get the best results and improvements for 2014.Feedback is Key 

Ask your customers some really specific questions, a couple for starters…
What is the one thing that you can pinpoint that sets us apart from your other suppliers?
If we could do one thing differently in our support for you in 2014 what would it be?A Few Questions For You

Whatever you are doing in your business ask yourself the simple questions: Will this help our customers do business with us? Will this make us a more customer focused organisation?
Customer service is our passion at Brightside Planning so please give us a call to discuss it with us further. Ensure your business is delivering first class customer experiences in 2014.

 

Thanks for reading and your support as always!
Karran
Plan Brighter