Published:
07/21/2012 10:16pm
Go Ahead... Make My Day - Make Your Client's Day With Extraordinary Care
If you want to wow your clients, and make their day, you can do that with extraordinary care. Your willingness to make your clients a priority, do what needs to be done (and then some), while demonstrating trustworthiness is a vital component to the success of your business. If you don't provide exceptional client care, are often late completing projects, and don't deliver what you say you will, you'll lose those clients.
Make client care a priority. After all, without clients, you do not have a business. You're clients aren't there for you, you are there for them. You provide a product or service for them, and without them, you don't exist. Therefore, good customer service is imperative for the life of your business.
When you first start your business it is possible to handle the customer care yourself, as long as you make it your first priority each day to answer questions, fix issues, and make your clients happy. But, if you're finding yourself putting this on the back burner more and more it's time to outsource. Do not put client care on your to-do list, just do it. Right now. If you don't, you'll regret it. Better to create a plan of action while your business is still getting off the ground than to wait until ill will has already been creating. You want to avoid fires, not run around putting them out.
The worst thing that can happen to a company that doesn't put client care first is that they will be seen as untrustworthy. Being trustworthy is an essential component to attracting clients and keeping clients. After all, people want to do business with people they trust. If they're going to open their PayPal accounts to you, the very first thing they need to feel is trust. If they see the right items on your website, and get the right response to their questions, they will trust you and spend money with you.
It is important to remember the following:
• The Customer Pays Your Bills -- Yes, you have your own business and you can choose not to do business with people you don't like. However, you don't want to turn off your entire niche by being hard to deal with. Your customer pays your bills! They are kind of your boss. There is a fine line, but you will need to learn to deal with people in a kind way.
• Appreciate Your Clients by Showing Them -- Clients love being appreciated! Consider having a yearly client appreciation day, or simply letting them know via email on a regular basis how much you appreciate them.
• Teach Clients Your System -- As a business owner you have your own system of how you want to accomplish tasks for and with your client. It is important that you teach the client your system because they can't use it properly if they don't know how to use it. Perhaps making some visuals via digital video to show clients how to do things will help.
• Say Yes Whenever You Can -- If saying yes doesn't affect your bottom line, or hurt your reputation, or cause any issues, why not say yes. "Yes", is a very powerful word! You'll need to consider each situation individually, but saying yes more, will automatically get you more business.
• Under Promise and Over Deliver -- Don't promise the moon and the stars and only deliver the moon. Deliver what you've promised, and then add a little more on top. That is why we love getting a cherry on top of our sundae! It's the little extra, that makes it extraordinary.
• Ask For Feedback and Listen -- After each service you provide, or a few months after your client receives your product, ask for feedback from your clients. Then, listen to it. Even if you get negative feedback always read between the lines for anything of value that you can use to make your services and / or product even better.
• Value Contractors -- If you use contractors to perform any services, value them. Train them properly by giving them appropriate feedback. Sometimes it can be hard to give a critique on their performance because you don't want to hurt their feelings, but you're not doing them any favors by not telling them both positive and negative feedbac
