Principles of good customer service

The key to good customer service is building good relationships with your customers. Thanking the customer and promoting a positive, helpful and friendly environment will ensure they leave with a great impression. A happy customer will return often and is likely to spend more.

To ensure you provide the best customer service:

• Know what your customers consider to be good customer service
• Take the time to find out customers' expectations
• Follow up on both positive and negative feedback you receive
• Ensure that you consider customer service in all aspects of your business
• Continuously look for ways to improve the level of customer service you deliver.

The following are some of the main elements of good customer service:

Customer relationships:

To build good customer relationships you need to:

• Greet customers and approach them in a way that is natural and fits the individual situation
• Show customers that you understand what their needs are
• Accept that some people won't want your products and concentrate on building relationships with those who do
• Help people - even just letting a customer know about an event that you know they're personally interested in is helpful
• Continue to keep customers aware of what's in it for them to do business with you.

Staff:

If you want to provide the best customer service, all of your staff need to have good communication and sales skills. You will also need to show leadership by personally providing excellent customer service at all times.

Complaints:

Listen to customer complaints; you may learn something about your product or service. Let customers know that you appreciate feedback. Overcome any objections. Listen to what the customer is objecting about (often price, merchandise or time). Confirm the validity of each concern and offer a solution.

Managing Complaints:

Well-managed complaints can benefit the business. Good business owners learn to see complaints as an opportunity to build strong, lasting relationships with customers and improve their customer service. Customer complaints give businesses valuable information about how they need to improve.

The impact a complaint has on your business is largely determined by you. If complaints are handled poorly, customers may withdraw their business and encourage others to do the same.

Complaints that are handled well may help you retain existing customers and could result in new customers being referred to your business.

Products:

Know your products - where everything is located, brand names, place of manufacture and price. The more you know, the more confidence you can build in the customer. Recognize product features. Turn these features into benefits for the customer. Ensure your staff can tell customers about the product features and benefits.