T3: Customer Service

T3: Customer Service

Three Thoughts:

Thought 1: Customer service is often separated from the sales process and not given as much attention when it is actually both a part of the sales process and crucial to customer loyalty, social proof, and return. A returning customer spends on average about 70% more with your business. Customer service before, during, and after the sale is a huge factor in creating the desire to repeat the experience with your company.

Thought 2: Customer service should be addressed on every step of the consumer and customer journey — from first impression to aftercare and continued service once the customer has fallen out of the direct sales/service cycle. Follow-up contact points such as email, text, and social media should include service-related content for every step of the journey. Customer loyalty programs should be built around continued service and brand inspiration.

Thought 3: When you start your business, you have a deep why — or Worthy Hell Yeah. When your customers come to your business, they have their own WHY. Your customer service should focus on the customer’s why.

Strategies:

Strategy 1: Take an in-depth look at your sales process and look for places where you are dropping the customer service ball. Many times, sales is intensely service oriented until the customer pays or signs and then it falls off. This let down opens the door for dissatisfaction. Make sure your business is elevating the service level directly after the sale. Also work on maintaining a high service standard even well after the sale.

Strategy 2: Learn your customer’s journey in increasing detail. Never stop exploring their motivations, pain points, desires, and ultimate goals. Make it your mission to see that they not only get what they need but are made to feel seen at every step. Customer service strategies are CANI situations — constant and never-ending improvement. Always be focused on how you can improve customer service.

Strategy 3: Really get to know your customer’s WHYs. There may be one or more than one. You may need to ask a lot of questions to discover them. It’s worth the effort to figure out how they found you worthy of helping them fulfill their Worthy Hell Yeah.

Things you can do:

1. Do a sales/service process audit. I recommend going through the entire process of discovery, sales, and service as a customer. If you’re a one-person shop, you’ll have to suspend some belief here, and that’s okay. It’s still a very useful endeavor. Do your best to look at your initial contact opportunities with fresh eyes. Walk yourself through all the sales calls, emails, and calls to action. Take the time to experience the check-out or final sale process as well as the follow-up and loyalty process. Weed out anything that doesn’t feel like service and look for places you can add better service that incorporates the customer journey step and your customer’s WHY.

2. Get really familiar with both the consumer and customer journey for your target markets. If you have more than one target market, map each separately. I teach classes around this and there’s a ton of useful information online and through AI tools (although I do recommend the more you can do research with live customers you want to return, the better!). Bottom line, get super curious about how your customers move through their own journey.

3. Make your customer’s WHY an internal discussion on a regular basis with your sales and service team. Make sure everyone, including you as a business leader, understands the WHYs of your customers.