Think about a business you love and ask yourself this question — how important is that business’s customer service? Keith Abrahams, sales trainer and business speaker, says it’s great customer service that sets successful businesses apart from the rest.

We may love a product from an annoying business, but a great business with a great product and service is a winning recipe. In fact, many of us go to restaurants where we know the food is not the best in the world, but the food plus service gives a great experience and so you turn up and turn up all of the time.

“Everyone talks about customer service and I think just giving acceptable customer service gets you into the game,” Abrahams says. “But what really keeps you ahead of your competitors and truly makes you memorable for all the right reasons with your customers is creating a service experience. That’s looking at what you do before, during, after and forever after.”

Some businesses forget the ‘after’ part, failing to encourage customers to do more business in the future.

“Too many businesses operate under the ‘3F’ principle,” he says. “We find ‘em, flog ‘em and then we forget ‘em. They don’t intentionally do that, but they don’t have any strategy in place.”
Abraham advises to keep in regular contact with your customers so that when it comes time to do business again, they remember your business. You also have to create a special experience for the customer.

“It’s not about customer communication, it’s about customer connection,” he says. “It’s what you do after the sale so you remain top of mind, and so you keep on coming back”
And of course, forming a strong business relationship is crucial.

“If you want to build a long term relationship, you’ve got to be adding value and the service expense is part of it. But then the other part of it is staying in touch with your customers when they’re not doing business with you,” he insists.

Abrahams suggests what he calls a “culture of innovation” is required in order to grow the business. Customers are not going to buy old ideas and it’s important to keep products, and the business, fresh.

“Too many people in business are not continuing to evolve and develop their business,” he observed. “In other words, it doesn’t have to be grandiose. The one thing I’ve learnt from working with the likes of Toyota and Lexus around the world is that it’s this concept of continuous improvement. But I like to call it the 1 per cent idea. What’s a 1 per cent idea that you can implement that will make just that little process or procedure or service experience a little bit better? And if I can string 10 of those 1 per cent ideas together, almost like compound interest, I get some compound (intake) in my business moving forward. But most people don’t have this culture of innovation because they’re not asking their people, or they’re not taking time out of their business to say ‘How do we continue to evolve our business and introduce these 1 per cent ideas?’”

So next time you do business, much like the classic movie starring Cary Grant and Deborah Kerr, make sure your customers get ‘a service experience to remember’.

Tips

o Don’t just provide acceptable customer service. Successful businesses have great customer service.

o Provide a customer service experience to remember.

o Don’t forget your customer once the deal is complete. Keep in contact with your customer through emails, phone or other, so that you are at top of mind when they are next looking to do business.

o Constantly evolve your business to keep it fresh and interesting.

By Peter Switzer, published on 18/12/2008

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