5 Lessons About Customer Service

1. Leave your office and visit customers in person

You’ve heard me say it time and time again – emails and phone calls can be effective, but nothing can compare to face2face meetings. It may be unrealistic for some of you to get out and meet all of your customers, but the ones that you do see, learn from them, listen to them and value them. This is not about sales but about building strong customer relationships.

2. Don’t leave it all to your sales representatives

Schedule regular on-site customer visits by you and members of your executive team. Some companies actually set quotas, requiring executives to go on X number of customer visits per year or quarter. Customer attitude starts at the top. Customer visits are a “lead by example” symbol internally to employees. They also result in better decisions – with so many demands on your attention, you can get out of touch in a changing marketplace without even realizing it.

3. Show that you appreciate them

It doesn’t have to be a gift, or a special ‘deal’. What about instead of always looking for customers to give testimonials to you, how about recommending your customers for a change? A recommendation can be as simple as a tweet with a  hashtag such as #fastdelivery for your shipping company or a #FF (Follow Friday) tweet. Help your fellow small business owners who are your customers, and they will help you. If you use and enjoy their products and services, be sure to let other people know. Retweet your customers on Twitter. Share and Like their content on Facebook. Small gestures talk big.

4. There’s more than just the reception desk.

You may think you know what challenges your customers face, but seeing them on their home turf can help you understand even better. Make a visit to your customer’s work site or offices for a facility tour. Get a look at their business processes first hand.

5. Customers actually love to talk to you!

Fear sometimes keeps business owners from reaching out to customers. So many of us only hear from our customers when they have complaints, issues or want a refund that we are reluctant to reach out. (Will we get a cool reception? Are they full of complaints? Did we screw up and not fix it right?) Initiate a conversation – you may be pleasantly surprised – and learn a lot.