The most successful businesses aren’t the ones that can attract a lot of customers. They are the ones that can keep a lot of customers. And there are two ways to do this: great products and great customer service.
The products should speak for themselves, but customer service can be a lot harder to get right. Giving the proper training is hugely important and establishing a protocol as to how customers are treated is by far the easiest way to ensure that customers get the same great service every time. Ensure that the people that you are employing are the right people for the job and that they are not only able to converse politely and verbosely, but also have the right frame of mind for a customer facing role.
However, it is not just your staff who need to know how to treat people. The better you treat your staff, the more inclined they will be to also have the most professional approach to the job at hand, and the way you react to them can help them understand how best to react to customers.
Whatever size of company you are, offering great customer service is all about ensuring the customer can get hold of you 24/7. For smaller companies this is totally impractical, but it could be the difference between customers staying with you and going elsewhere.
For this purpose, using a telephone answering service is by far the best way to offer great customer service around the clock. Having call handling will mean there will always be someone ready to take a call from potential clients without you having to pay a permanent wage – you simply pay them for the work they do.
Ensure you pick the right telephone answering service though – you need to know that the people in charge of your call handling are as polite and efficient as possible to make sure your customers stay with you for a long time to come.