Million Tips » Customer Service

The Small Business Advantage

Jeremy Reis — Fri, 11 Dec 2009 23:50:13 +0000

Small businesses have tremendous and weaknesses over their bloated public-company cousins. Embrace the things that makes your business unique and special – the things that attract customers to use you over the battleship sized competitor.

Too frequently, small businesses institute policies and procedures to “act” like their larger competitors. In many industries, your flexibility and personal customer service is what attracted your customer to your company. Embrace your personal service: answer your phones with a live human, answer emails on the same day they are received, call your customer to see how you can help him accomplish his job.

A Reminder of Why You’re in Business

Jeremy Reis — Fri, 11 Dec 2009 15:53:58 +0000

Every time your business or team receives a compliment, place a marble in a glass bowl. This is a visible reminder of why you’re business, why you’re working so hard, and provides a visual reminder to your employees about why your business is important.

As you bring customers or others into your work area, show them the bowl and explain what it is.

Keeping Existing Customers is Cheaper Than Finding New Ones

Jeremy Reis — Tue, 08 Dec 2009 00:40:27 +0000

Retaining your existing customers is much cheaper than continually turning over your customer base and needing to find new ones. If your organization has not yet calculated a customer acquisition cost, how much it costs to acquire each new customer, you should determine this amount so you understand exactly what customer turnover costs you. You will likely find that it is much cheaper to retain your existing customers than to find new ones. Once you know how much a new customer costs you, you will be more likely to invest in the customer service required to keep your customers.

Fix Your Major Customer Service Mistakes

Jeremy Reis — Mon, 07 Dec 2009 18:22:21 +0000

Create a list of the top five problems your customer service team has and create a plan to address each one. Solving your customer service problems will help more than just your bottom line, it can also help your own employee morale, your marketing efforts, and keep existing customers.