Customer relationships are the foundation of your business. Those that endure contribute to your sustainability while revealing insights about trends, changing market needs, feedback on strategy, and innovation opportunities – all valuable inputs for decision-making and value creation.
But customer relationships are also fragile, and heavily dependent on the service experience that your business delivers, particularly when things don’t go as planned.
Your customer-service personnel are your front-line relationship reps, the face of your business. If your strategy relies on producing exceptional service experiences, then they should be doing more than assisting with order entry and status.
A committed customer experience team strengthens relationships when empowered to listen more than talk, demonstrate empathy, and provide answers that help the customer progress, beyond immediate need resolution, towards the achievement of their goals. Your team’s demonstration of appreciation and respect delights customers and validates why they chose to deal with your company.
Of course, creating exceptional service experiences relies on your commitment to invest in the people, processes, and other resources necessary to reliably deliver your full measure of promised value, which then nurtures a preference for your offerings. Cultivating this preference begins during new product development; envision and plan for the level of customer service that will consistently generate the expected benefits from your new offering to ensure that your promised value is fully realized by the customer.
Enduring customer relationships rely on your ability to continually create value for your customers. Wrapping exceptional service experiences around your offerings boosts customer satisfaction and your company’s distinctiveness.
How is your business delivering exceptional customer experiences?
