Create More Customers

Last week I wrote a blog post entitled "Treat Your Friends Like Customers." You'll noticed it's not entitled, "Treat Your Customers Like Friends." That notion is a given and there have been many books and articles on the subject of treating your customers as if they were your friends.

The reason I took the opposite tact is that I feel sometimes we might be remiss in the way we act toward our friends. Since this blog is targeted toward other website owners, I felt that a reminder to try and treat our friends as well as we (hopefully) treat our customers, might come in handy. (At the same time, this post and last week's post serve as a devious, sneaky reminder about how we should act toward our customers as well).

5 More Principles of Superior Customer Service

Last week we examined 5 principles of customer service and wondered what would happen if we applied those principles to our friendships. I think it was pretty much agreed that applying them would only strengthen and deepen those friendships.  Let's look at 5 more:

1. Make customers feel valued and appreciated- If you can create an environment where your customer feels valued and appreciated, you've not only increased the lifetime value of that customer (because he's going to keep coming back to you) but he's also going to tell everyone else he knows about your service.  How about making sure that your friends feel valued and appreciated? When's the last time you told your buddy, "I'm sure glad that we're friends. I really am grateful for our friendship," and meant it. Wouldn't that make you feel good to hear that from someone?
2. Avoid interrupting and over-talking- One of the last things you want to do is cut off a customer in mid-sentence by interjecting your own point-of-view. The reason you wait until they've finished is because a) it's rude; b) it sends the message that what they have to say isn't all that important to you; and 3) you might learn something valuable if you just wait and listen before speaking. I definitely think that this principle applies to friendships as well and probably even more so. More so,because your friendships will probably last longer than than the relationships you have with your customers.
3. Welcome customer complaints- Customer complaints are constructive, not destructive and should be welcomed and not avoided. They inform you and educate you as to where your service or product is lacking. By having this information, you're in a position to improve your service or product and hopefully reduce complaints in the future. It's the same thing with friendships. If our friends don't tell us where we're letting them down, or behaving poorly, how will we ever improve ourselves and become a better friend?
4. Solve the customer's problem- Solving their problems is really all that most customers want. No one wants to have problems in the first place, if they can avoid it, but when they do come up, your job is to help them solve it. I realize that this might be a little different with friends, because while friends may come to you with a problem, they may only really just want someone to listen to them, not try and solve it for them.But even that, is it's own solution. By listening and being there when it's needed, you're helping them and eventually the solution will surface.
5. Act ethically and with integrity toward your customer- I think this principle speaks for itself and can certainly be applied to our friendships as well. There's nothing that feels as good as going to sleep at night, knowing that you've treated everyone you met that day, honestly, ethically and with integrity. It's got to be very hard for those people who end up having to sleep with one eye open. You know what I mean?

Better, Worse or Unchanged?

I think, just as in the last post, applying any of these principles can only have a positive affect on our personal relationships as well as our business relationships. I'd sure like to hear from you with any other examples you can think of that can be applied equally as well to customer relationships and personal friendships.

Comments...

Please post your comments or other examples down below.

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Rick Henkin
IncreaseOnlineProfits.com
TheSolutionMovie.com

This entry was posted on Tuesday, February 2nd, 2010 at 10:37 am and is filed under internet marketing. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.