Skill 7: Customer Service
Processing orders, shipping, answering the phone, answering customer emails, providing forms and questionnaires on your site for customer feedback, all of these fit into the mix we call customer service. You don’t want to be known for decent customer service, you want to stand out for excellent or extraordinary customer service. Why?
Because the hardest thing to do in business is to get a new customer. The easiest thing to do is get repeat business. Without repeat business-you’ll be out of business! So, when your hard work has paid off by getting paying customers to your website, treat them like kings and queens. Yes, the customer’s always right. Resolve any issue on the side of the customer. It might cost you a few bucks, but if the customer feels that they lost an argument with you, they won’t be back. Unfortunately, their experience will be the topic of conversations with friends and acquaintances for at least a week or two. With some folks, and you know the type, we’ve all met one or two in our lives…it may be the topic of their conversations for a year! Not only did you loose them as a customer, but you have lost a few other potential customers as well. You can’t afford that. It might even be worse!
Surely you joined BBBONLINE or some other organization or three that gives your customer some assurances, as they peruse your site, that you are one of the good guys. Well, you don’t want customers running to your oversight agency for mediation of a dispute. One, settled on the side of the customer...you are probably fine. But, if BBB starts getting multiple calls from different customers of yours complaining…that seal of approval will have to come down. Now your repeat customers will notice and start fleeing from your site. Not because you don’t have a seal of approval, but because they know you had a seal of approval, and now it’s gone. You should be nowhere near this type of situation. If you simply follow the golden rule of life and business you should not find yourself in this situation: