To be successful, in any business, we need to give our customers what they want, in a way that works for our business. We should focus on doing what our customers want AND what we can do well.

Then we need to do it well. In fact we should do it better than anyone else in our market. And we need to do it that way with every customer every time no exceptions and no excuses.

But we all have a big obstacle that stands in our way. We never really know how good we are. Or, to be more precise, we never know how good our company is in the eyes of our customers. This is because we can only see our company from OUR perspective. If you’re the owner or manager or otherwise removed from the front line then your vision of your company is even more obscured.

However, there is a solution. There are people who see our companies as they really are. They see every transaction. They experience every customer contact. They understand exactly how our company delivers its products and services.

They’re called customers and employees.

No one else sees your company like they do. The sum of their experiences make up your company’s reputation, your corporate karma and in many ways, your brand. They alone know how well your company is doing.

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Republished with author's permission from original post by Kevin Stirtz.

The headline of this post comes from a blog post by my friend Brian Carroll. His post describes a conversation he had with a client where they discussed how lead generation often ignores current customers. As a result of the discussion, one CEO decided his company would begin focusing more on current customers. He even referred to their new focus as their “Customers First Plan”.

The outcome of their new-found focus on existing customers was revealing. They increased revenue from current customers by 15%. Even better, their referrals jumped over 100%.

As they focused more on existing customers, they no doubt did things that improved their relationships with them. And, probably they learned more what their customers wanted from them, how they were doing and what the current gap was. Perhaps they also took action to improve the service they delivered to their customers. (It makes sense they would.)

By doing all this they delivered a powerful message to their customers: You are important. We are here to serve you.

I’ve seen this happen time and again. When you honestly and sincerely reach out to your customers and ask them how you can do better, you build a stronger relationship. Your customers begin to see you less as a vendor and more as a partner. They see the value in having an ongoing, two-way exchange of ideas, feedback and best practices with you. This increases your value to them.

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Republished with author's permission from original post by Kevin Stirtz.

A few years ago AOL became the poster child for a special kind of customer abuse when a customer recorded his phone call to them as he tried to cancel his account. All he wanted to do was leave. All they wanted to do was prevent him from leaving.

But they had his credit card information and so they could make him jump through any hoops they wanted to prevent him from becoming a former customer.

Happily, for him and the rest of us, the news media saw the value in this as a story and it went viral. AOL got a black that lasted a long time.

But too many companies still operate this way. Some will cloak their policies in the guise of security. But I don’t buy it. Because if their process is secure enough for me to open an account online, then it should be secure enough for me to close my account the same way.

And that’s when you know a company is committing customer abuse, not customer service.

If you do business with a company and they make it harder to quit being a customer than it was to start, then they are abusing your rights as a customer. They are wasting your time in a misdirected attempt to keep you tied to them.

Someone in these companies had the incredibly unoriginal thought that making it hard to leave would keep more customers on the books.

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Republished with author's permission from original post by Kevin Stirtz.

Think about how we often describe our customers. We might label them as difficult, angry, rude, uninformed, arrogant, etc. (Sometimes we use terms like friendly, warm, engaging and so on.) On one level this seems useful. It might help us decide how to handle certain customers in specific situations.

But labels can also cause problems.

Labels can get in the way of better customer service. When we label people we tend to focus on the label. We see the customer through that filter. Everything they do or say gets colored by the label we attach to them.

Yet to give our customers the best service we can, we need to focus on their needs and our behavior. While we cannot control our customer’s experience we can influence it. And we do that with our behavior. This is the most important tool we have to deliver amazing customer service.

So forget labels. They just get in the way. Instead, focus on your actions.

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Republished with author's permission from original post by Kevin Stirtz.

One of the best ways to keep your customers coming back is by offering them details. The more specific you can be, the more most people will appreciate your efforts. When you offer customers details, you’re telling them you are willing to be thorough and complete as you help them. And you’re telling them you know what you’re doing. Details give you credibility.

For example, as I was paying bills a few days ago, I noticed a charge on my credit card that did not belong. It was from a hotel I stayed at recently. So, I called the hotel to ask about it. The person who answered told me she would have to research it and call me back.

She didn’t say when she would call me back.

If she had put herself in my shoes, she might have considered that this was an inconvenience for me. The hotel had made a mistake and I had to use my time to fix it. And, now I’m supposed to wait for some indeterminant amount of time, hoping she’ll call back.

A better way would have been to offer me her name and a time range during which she would call back. That would tell me she’s willing to be held accountable. And it would give me something to plan against. If she didn’t call back in the promised time frame I could call again and escalate the matter.

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Republished with author's permission from original post by Kevin Stirtz.

It seems natural customer loyalty would follow good service. If you get what you want and you are treated right, why would you not return to a business? But sometimes it’s useful to have more than an intuitive argument. So I have done a bit of research and I have found two statistics that tell me there is a clear link connecting customer service and customer loyalty.

They also suggest some substantial benefits from improving customer service.

The first is a well-known number. It comes to us from the American Society of Quality Control (as best I can determine). According to an oft-cited study, 68 percent of customers who never return to a business choose to not come back because of they were treated.

In other words, poor service is the reason 68 percent of customers choose to take their business elsewhere.

That’s a striking number. It means that two out of every three customers are leaving because our employees do not treat them well. It had nothing to do with price, product quality, location, convenience, or other factors. It has everything to do with how willing and able employees are to serve their customers.

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Republished with author's permission from original post by Kevin Stirtz.

Several times a year I get a CD from a well-known PR consultant. She is a very aggressive and consistent promoter of her business. She has done a good job making herself well-known in her niche.

But, when I listen to her CD I often resist her message. Not because of its quality. She has a lot of good ideas and advice. What drives me away is the amount of time it takes to introduce her on each CD program.

Her intro seems to go on and on. It talks about every little thing she’s done. By the time I get through it I’m exhausted. Or I try to fast forward through it and I miss a big chunk of the program.

Even though this PR expert might be the best in her business, I am still left with a less than great experience when I listen to her CD program. This experience transfers to her as a professional. Whatever emotions I associate with that experience will also attached to her, in my mind.

In other words, her CD programs have the opposite of their intended effect. They don’t make me want to hire her. And the main reason for it is the long and winding intro. It makes the whole thing sound like it’s all about her.

But as a customer (or potential client) I want it to be about me. I’m interested in what I want, in what I’m trying to accomplish. I want the experience to be focused on me and my objectives.

Sure, I want to know my PR person is good. I’d like to think she or he has the experience and expertise to help me accomplish what I want.

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Republished with author's permission from original post by Kevin Stirtz.

Every business exists to help people accomplish something. If we fail at that then our business will not be sustainable. But to help our customers really get what they want, we need to know what that is.

When you ask your customers what they want, how you’re doing and how you can improve, they will give you a goldmine of information. Use this information well and your business can thrive in any economy.

Other articles you might like:

• Is there such a thing as too much customer service?
• Forget revenue. Focus on serving your customers well.
• 5 New Year’s Resolutions for Amazing Customer Service
• Has the Recession Improved Customer Service?
• What Are You Doing to Offer Value?

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Republished with author's permission from original post by Kevin Stirtz.

The biggest reason we don’t accomplish what we want in our businesses (and, in our personal lives) is we’re not always willing to change when we should. It’s easy for us to keep doing what we’re doing. It’s habit. It’s comfortable. It’s known. Our brains are hardwired this way for some very good reasons.

But this can also be an obstacle to growth and improvement.

Too often our habits stop us from making internal changes in response to external changes the world had brought to our door. They can blind us to how the rest of the world has changed, which can affect our business.

Our habits can also prevent us from trying new things even when we know we should. There’s risk involved in trying something new. Will it work or not? How will I know? And there’s a cost of figuring out what to do and how to do it. Some days it’s just easier to put such decisions on the back burner and keep doing things the way we always have.

Many of us will only change when two things happen.

1. We get frustrated with how things are.

We finally understand or acknowledge things are not as we’d like them so we get upset, irritated or even angry. This is critical for motivating us to make a permanent change.

2. We believe we CAN change.

Frustration is usually not enough. We need one more element: Faith.

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Republished with author's permission from original post by Kevin Stirtz.

I admit I’m rather a demanding consumer. I’m pretty sure I get it from my mom. She’s one of the world’s all time greatest when it comes to being a demanding customer.

And I think it’s good there are people like us around. No one else can offer businesses the quality of advice that their demanding customers can. They should thank us.

But most companies either ignore or barely tolerate demanding customers. They fail to train their employees how to deal with us. Often their goal seems to be just to pacify us and get us to shut up rather than really understand the problem and try to do something about it.

Too often, their approach is to throw money at us rather than listen to our valuable feedback. Recently I had some copying done at a local office products store. They usually do a good job but this time they dropped the ball all over the place. It turned into a comedy of errors by the time it was over.

As I finished explaining to the manager the litany of problems, he ended by apologizing and offering me 25% off my next order. This is a common way for people to mollify customers who have had problems.

But I don’t think it’s effective. There are two problems with this solution.

First, it ignores the current complaint. Instead of offering me a bribe to come back, tell me you’re going to take action to prevent this from happening again. Or at least tell me you’ll try.

Deal with my complaint. Don’t just throw money at me.

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Republished with author's permission from original post by Kevin Stirtz.