If you’re a modern professional “of a certain age” (ahem), you’ll remember a time when waiting for the cable guy was an all-day commitment. Remember? They’d be there “sometime between 8 a.m. and 4 p.m.” Ugh.
Or you’d sit on your phone, staring at a “blue screen of death,” waiting on hold behind 26 other crash victims for two minutes of tech support from a grumpy IT person.
Well, guess what? That’s not how the world works anymore. Successful businesses have forged a new customer experience, with new technology, whittling down those eight-hour windows and replacing time spent on hold with live chats or call-back options.
That’s why your clients are no longer satisfied to sit around and wait for transactions and communication about those transactions that used to take days or even weeks. Their expectations have changed, and if you haven’t, you’d better.
It all comes down to knowing their needs. Keeping on top of what your customers want and expect is an ongoing process. You need to do more than just sell to your customers—you need to create a relationship with them, and understand not just how to “fill the order” or “do the work,” but to satisfy the needs that drive those orders, and that work.
So how do you DO that? Well, for starters, there are many communication tools at your disposal, and new ones popping up every day.
Are you and your team familiar with these tools? Do you know how your customers communicate? And how they prefer to communicate?
Do you have a professional social media presence, and strategy? And even more importantly—do you have someone monitoring what everyone else out there is saying about you?
It’s easy to get overwhelmed. But with a measured, methodical and strategic approach to gaining new business, and maintaining (and increasing!) current accounts, you can position yourself for the continued growth you need to remain successful and profitable.
You see, “customer service” is no longer enough. EVERYBODY provides customer service—if they didn’t, they wouldn’t be in business. Your focus needs to be on creating a customer experience, one that’s built around knowing all aspects of what your customers desire—and meeting them.
Never forget: when it comes to the customer experience, the bar gets higher every day—and you’d better be able to reach it!
Grow Big or Go Home!