Surprise Your Customers With Unexpected Levels of Service

One of the main features of marketing and branding is how customers evaluate your service. Why not surprise your customers by exceeding their service expectations? Go on, do it! It’s not that hard to do because most of us have been battered into submission by years of mediocre service. In his book “Purple Cow: Transform Your Business by Being Remarkable,” Seth Godin says that the key to success is to find a way to stand out–to be the purple cow in a field of monochrome Holsteins. And when you stand out in the crowd your customers talk about you, they spread the word, they make remarks about the great experience they had and you become “Remarkable”. One way to be remarkable is take your customers by surprise and offer superlative customer service – well in excess of their expectations. We are so used to expecting customer service to be lousy or insincere and corporatised (Coles – “Have a Nice Day”). So when we get good friendly customer service, personal attention, and an unexpected “something extra” – it is so surprising that we tell our friends and colleagues. I had a remarkable customer service experience recently with Kalamunda Dental Care. The exemplary greeting and courtesy at reception was an indication of their special service culture. Coupled with the care and attention I received whilst being drilled and filled was enough to make me recommend this dentist to my friends and relatives. But a couple of days after the visit I received a thank you letter for my custom and 3 scratch lottery tickets. Now that was unexpected, remarkable in fact, and here I am raving about it. What a surprising thing! A business that took the time to thank me and reward me for my custom. Now, it’s not that hard to do but someone had to think it, plan it, make it someone’s responsibility and execute it. One of the tickets was a winner by the way! Imagine what it would mean to your business if you spent time each week planning and tweaking your customer service. How would you be able to pleasantly surprise your customers. Think about ways you can build a remarkable customer service experience in your business: Stop and think about what you want your customers to experience. Write down all the ways you and your staff come into contact with your customers -this includes telephone, face to face contact, letters, invoices, website, email, advertising. From your marketing through to your after sales service, plot and write down the things you are your staff can do to make your customers rave about you. Pity the supermarket check out staff who are instructed to mouth “how are you today?” and “have a nice day” and end up so flat and phoney – the big corporations so often fail when it comes to understanding personalised service. Recruit people that are capable of understanding your culture and can absorb your training – if you need to pay a bit more to get the right people then do it – the cost of inadequate staff will cost you far more than the extra wages you may have to pay to get someone remarkable. Ensure that you quickly assess the capability of new staff and if they cannot deliver the customer service excellence you want move them on quickly or take them out of a frontline customer role before they do any more damage to your business.
Amongst the many results of customer service is the fact that customers often don’t think about price – and you are now differentiating yourself on the basis of service, whilst your competitors are competing on one thing and that’s “price.” Why not share your thought and successes with others? Drop us an email at team@nowbusinessmastery.com and we’ll publish your tips here or, better still, leave a comment on this page.