The Importance of Customer Service – Part 2
Naz Daud - Owner, CityLocal
If customers are not happy with the level of customer service, such as failing to have queries dealt with, having to wait excessive periods of time to wait for a response, having responses which make little sense, offer little support, express little concern or fail to resolve the issue quickly and effectively, then the chances are high that you will lose that customer.
More than this, by losing a customer, you are highly likely to lose any potential sales you may have acquired through recommendation. With so much choice available and so much variety, increasingly we are relying on personal recommendations, and online reviews, to help make up our mind on whether to commit to a retailer or service provider, especially if it is likely to be for a significant sum or a long term contractual arrangement.
Failing to provide adequate customer service can easily result in losing out on personal recommendations, and could easily result in publically viewable reviews advising against your ompany or service. The internet can easily work in your favour, but similarly it can work against you if you fail to meet expectations.
To a large extent, the importance and intensity of customer service is likely to depend on the nature of the business in which you become involved. If you’re seeking to start out as an individual entrepreneur, working from home with little direct contact with customers, then you may consider the importance of customer service to be less of a priority than those entering into a business arrangement which has massive contact with customers and relies heavily on customer loyalty.
This is turn may impact on your decision when it comes to deciding what kind of business to enter into, what kind of franchise opportunity to become involved with, or the nature of any solo business you choose to initiate. Are you a people person? Do you like solving problems and offering a high level of service to customers? If not, then a business model which relies upon this may not be for you, and the issue of outsourcing the service center becomes one to consider.
Ultimately it will be important to think about customer service not from the business point of view alone, taking on board the financing, the time, the means by which issues can be filed, dealt with, followed up and referred back, but also from the point of view of your customers. Happy customers equate to customer loyalty and recommendations, which in turn results in a more profitable and successful business. Get your customer service right and you’re more likely to see the business succeeding where other, perhaps larger companies are losing sight of the very blood which made them successful in the first place.
Naz Daud is the founder of CityLocal. This Franchise Opportunity is for people who would like to work from home and be their own boss – Read more about the CityLocal Franchise Opportunity.
Tags: business, customer service, franchise, naz daud
