Maureen presenting the Customer Service Award to Ghodsi Young
Last Friday Maureen was thrilled to attend the Johnston Press South Business Awards and present the Customer Service award to Ghodsi Young from Ghodsi Barbers.
Ghodsi Barbers is now a multi-award winning small business that prides itself on customer service and building lifelong customer relationships. Barbers and hairdressers survive by building lasting relationships with clients and if they’re smart, they reward them handsomely for sticking with them.
The Forbes Insights, Customers for life: technology strategies for attracting and keeping customers highlights the importance of these life long relationships.
According to this report, “analyst firms forecast customer experience delivery to differentiate business in the near future, overtaking product and price in importance by 2020.” This means that getting your customer service right is more important than ever and building lifelong relationships is the goal to strive for.
So how do you change your perspective? Barbers and hairdressers have the upper hand in this respect as they have guaranteed face to face time with each of their clients. Not all businesses have this opportunity though, so it is important to optimise ‘revenue growth strategies’ and ‘technology landscapes’ in order to strive for this goal.
So here we look at how to enhance your customer service and build life long customer relationships.
Get your priorities in order
Everything these days is about the next new thing, just look at Apple and their loyal following of customers clambering over each other for the new iPhone 6. New and shiny works for products and technologies, but don’t make the mistake in assuming it works for customers. A new client isn’t necessarily going to be shinier than an old one. According to the Customers for Life report, 49% of the companies interviewed consider acquiring new customers their top priority, while only 38% focus on loyal, regular customers who purchase frequently. Anyone could tell you that it’s poor practice to neglect regular customers, but the problem is that while most companies understand this, they don’t have the right strategies and tools to implement an effective retention plan.
It’s all about strategy
Strategy is crucial for designing and implementing effective customer service. According to Forbes, 84% of the companies interviewed said they had a strategy in place, but only 49% considered it a priority. The way to get around this is to get everyone involved from the top level down. If everyone is working towards the same goal and following the same strategy then things will move much faster. Forbes identified that in the companies where their strategies were fully integrated; their chief officers were involved in the process. Where we still have barriers, however, are having the right tools to implement the strategy effectively.
Get the right tools
According to Forbes, the companies that “reported full integration of customer-communications and data-gathering systems also reported better overall performance in every phase of the customer life-cycle.” It is crucial to organise your data in one place so that everyone can access it. One of the major barriers to good customer service is a lack of information and communication. If you are going to make one solid investment in the next financial year, put it towards your data gathering and storing technology. You won’t regret the investment.
So effective customer relationships really can be broken into those three simple steps, but it’s easier said than done. It requires commitment and determination, but the hard work will pay off when you reach the other side and reap the benefits of growing your sales from a customer base that is already aware of the excellence of your products and services.