Customer Service – Still Relevant, Still Important

Customer Service: (noun)

The provision of service to customers before, during and after a purchase. – Wikipedia.com

A customer came inside your home appliances store and browsed around for furniture in the bedroom section. After meandering over the closet selection, the customer looked around for sales assistants. One sales staff approached the customer and answered questions about the make and availability of the customer’s preferred design. After looking over other options, the customer decided on another design. Sales staff concurred, closet was paid for and delivery details arranged. Sales staff thanked the customer and promised to provide regular updates on the closet order. Customer smiled and left happily after the well-done transaction, vowing to recommend the store for fine service.

Customer service nowadays still has the quality present in the above selection. Many companies, especially small businesses, emphasize the importance of performing personable service for their customers. Whether people find satisfaction or regret over their transaction, they spread the word about your business. More so, if they have social networking accounts. According to Simon Mainwaring, “Consumers using social media are wielding growing influence, telling more people about their service experiences, good and bad.” And since social networks are as vast as the world is wide, one good or bad customer experience can resonate throughout the whole online community.

Engaging the customer well is vital to extending the life of your business. If you’re infamous for bad customer service, your business will lose huge profits and might even close down. To avoid this scenario, make your customers feel well-attended to. Know when to let them choose merchandise by themselves and when to go to their aid. If you’re dealing with a customer and another one comes up to you, acknowledge their presence first. Letting them wait for you to finish can make them feel ignored. It also helps to observe their body language cues, facial expressions and tone of voice to gauge the best way to approach them.

Social media can help you maintain contact with your customers even after the sale. Following up with them regarding the goods they brought from you can make them feel appreciated. Customers who feel satisfied with the service they received are more liable to tell other people of their pleasure in dealing with you. They can discuss their experience with you on online public forums, chat rooms, blogs and other social networking platforms. This makes it very important for you to improve your service and maintain a solid web presence to preserve good customer relations.

Combining fine customer service and a dynamic social media existence will help your business grow and prosper. Let them go hand by hand, and soon, your customer base will start to expand with referrals rushing in to keep you busy.