Customer service... its easy really.

Today I was utilising a 3 party provider (sometimes it is unavoidable) a real industry giant. Boy did they run us around, I think my phone call tally to them today regarding the collection of 1 car was 6 calls. They promised to have a car collected before lunch and missed the target rescheduled for early afternoon missed that target too. Now you would have thought that once it started going south for them that they would have been proactive and stayed in touch with me, the client, but sadly not.

Me, I was talking to my client all day letting them know that while it had gone a little pear shaped, we were still in control and and working hard for them. After the car was collected I was happy to receive a call from the customer telling me that it was the confidence that we gave them in the first instance was why they had chosen us and they were happy we had backed it up today

Customer Confidence

I can't count the number of times that a customer has said to me or my team that they chose our service over one of our competitors because of our service. I hear all the time 'You gave me confidence over the phone so I chose your company', and at times we can be the more expensive option.

I comment all the time to the team that it doesn't matter if we are out priced on certain transport corridors by $20 or $30. I'll back our service every time, if we have a professional approach and give our customers confidence in our ability. We will maintain our competitive advantage because of our commitment to service.

Here's the catch though- if we build customer expectation we need to deliver on it. 99% Of the time this can be achieved with simple communication. If we stay in touch with our clients, especially when something goes amiss we can turn a negative into a positive and still have a happy client. The other 1% we may have to work harder but I firmly believe that it is worth every effort.

There will always be a small minority that feel that you have let them down and in some cases they may be right, however with a small amount of humility, most cases are resolvable. On the odd occasion that its not, what really matters is that you have made a reasonable effort to keep the customer satisfied.

All I know is that this is why we'll be a success.