Good Customer Service: A Strong Return on Investment
by Sam Kellogg
With the economy still troubled and consumers wary of spending even a dollar, you need to use whatever tools you can to get a leg up in the marketplace. I count great customer service as one of those tools. In fact, it is the one tool that costs you little and can have the highest return on investment for your business.
In a recent blog post, Seth Godin, a popular Web marketing guru, talked about the importance of maintaining relationships with customers over the long term. He argues that marketers often make a mistake in seeking more and more new clients for their businesses rather than cultivating clients who have been with companies for years.
"Attracting a new customer costs far more than keeping an old one happy. Not only that, but an old customer is far more likely to bring you new people via word of mouth than someone who isn't even a customer yet," Godin wrote.
If you don't know who Seth Godin is, join the club. He's an admired name on the Web, but that doesn't mean his marketing "intelligence" has made its way to the average entrepreneur's consciousness. Fortuitously, a friend recommended a read, saying he was someone who had insights that extended beyond the Internet.
My friend was right. Godin's blog post tackles a subject that is often ignored by traditional marketing geniuses. Existing customers or clients are much more likely to buy from you, especially in this distressed economy, because they will reward loyalty. I find this especially true in my interior design business where clients will stay with me for years, even decades, because I have developed a strong bond with them.
Even in difficult economic times, the tendency for clients is to first approach someone they have a history with. I know this is true with me when I go shopping for products and services. Too much is at stake financially to trust your hard-earned dollars to a stranger, especially when you might be spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on an interior design project. And, yes, some families are still spending those kinds of dollars in this economy.
I also find my clients are happy to recommend me to their friends when they decide to invest in an interior design project. Who better than a satisfied, long-term customer to talk you up to their friends? My investment for such great marketing? Absolutely nothing, in the short term. Yet over the years, I have worked hard to provide the kind of quality customer service that distinguishes me from my competitors and has left my clients feeling respected and appreciated.
What I like about this long-term approach to customer service is the emphasis on the long term. There are no quick or easy answers to most problems. There is certainly nothing that can be resolved by dramatic outbursts at the client or at a contractor when things go wrong. Most solutions come at a reasonable pace after thoughtful discussion. Despite our desire to have it all fixed yesterday, sometimes the best solutions come in the form of a well-executed compromise.
I had a client who was dissatisfied with a contractor's work, despite the fact he had delivered exactly what she requested. (A common problem in interior design.) Seething, the client called me and demanded an immediate solution. I knew the contractor had found the client disagreeable and had already moved on to his next job—an immediate response was unlikely and any brow beating on my part would prove detrimental.
My first step was to talk calmly with my client. As a business owner, I am the first line of defense (and offense) with clients. It's my job to make sure that their requests and demands are addressed or to apply a firm hand if their tone or demands seem unreasonable. Luckily for us, the problem wasn't acute, and she could live with it for a short period. Next, I met privately with the contractor, and we worked out a solution that fit his schedule and the client's needs. Ultimately, his willingness to come back to the job, combined with my diplomacy, proved a winning combination for the client. She not only approved of the final product, she came back to both of us with additional projects.
Like most things in business, quality customer service must be delivered to solve today's problems but with the knowledge that how you perform now will determine whether your client returns in the future. In any business, a long-term commitment to customer service is the surest way to boost your return on investment.
