Customer Care

6. Check What's Going on

Choose the customer-care strategies (listed in 1-4) that are appropriate to your situation.

Then establish systems to make it all happen, and monitor your actual performance.

6.1 Prioritise your resources.

• Work out which customers are the most profitable, taking into account the cost of providing them with the service they require.
• Bend over backwards to please your best customers. The extra service has already paid for itself.
• For your average customers, offer extra service only if you expect to get a fair return on the expense involved.

6.2 Set your standards.

• The service offered by your direct competitors provides a basic standard below which you cannot afford to fall.

6.3 Try to pinpoint where good service or presentation would impress customers.

• The owner of a small business selling pet food door-to-door discovered that donning a clean white coat (like a vet) improved his sales. Suddenly, customers regarded him as a pet expert, not a salesman.
• A plumber made a point of turning up exactly on time and cleaning up when the work was done. Customers were quick to recommend him to friends - though his plumbing was not necessarily anything special.

6.4 Keep track of whether you meet the standards you have set.

• Ask customers whether they are getting the service they expect. Try telephoning your own company to place an order and see what happens.
• When incidents occur and you fall below your usual standards, recognise what has happened, apologise to the customer and find out the root cause of the failure.
• A logbook of customer feedback will help you identify problem areas.
• Periodically ask all your customers this question:

6.5 If, like many start-ups, you depend on a few customers who give you repeat business, customer care takes on even greater importance.

• Keep a file on each customer company and on each key individual in the company. This way you will be able to keep track of the information. For example, your file may record that one company prefers deliveries on Monday mornings, your last delivery was two weeks ago and the managing director likes gardening. Your customers will be impressed by evidence that shows you treat them as individuals.