The Customer is Queen

It's long been known by big and small business alike that it's cheaper to keep a customer than to gain a new one. But the gap between what we know and what we do is often wide. As many small businesses struggle in this challenging economy to stay afloat, one tool to help ensure you weather the storm and indeed to position your company more competitively is to be the best in delivering great customer service. Whatever that looks like in your world, B2B or B2C. And positioning, of course, is a key component of branding.

Apparently women business owners have honed in on this fact, however they're not taking full advantage of customer loyalty programs nor do most have formal customer service strategies.

In a recent Forbes Insights/Key4Women Customer Service Survey of women business owners conducted by Key Bank, the survey found that many women business owners polled said customer service was a higher priority for their business than cost containment, sales prospecting, or increasing productivity as they worked to survive the recession. Only customer retention beat out customer service as a top priority. Looking ahead to 2011, customer service dropped behind prospecting and sales and customer retention, but still 1/3 of the responding business owners said customer service would remain their top priority.

So what are some simple steps you can take, regardless of whether you're a woman owned enterprise or not? Here are a few ideas to get you started:

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  Leverage social media to be a better listener. Chances are some subsets of your customers are active on Facebook, LinkedIn and other social media sites? Much of the buzz about business use of social media focuses on how to monetize its use, overlooking the fact that these sites are first and foremost great feedback channels. Your customers are talking - are you listening? Ask them how you can improve service- you may be surprised at the answers you get.
  
• You can never say ‘thank you’ too much. From old school handwritten thank you notes to email campaigns using providers like Constant Contact, when was the last time you said ‘thank you’ to your most loyal customers, no strings attached?
  
• Identify one small change to how you deliver your goods or services that would have a big impact in service delivery. For example, if yours is a retail location, could you put coffee service out in a.m. like one daycare center does for busy parents? Or the chiropractor that gives every client a chilled bottle of water as they exit? If yours is a service business, could you highlight a client of the month on your website? These small adds are very inexpensive if not free, yet can make a difference in your brand’s stickiness.

The possibilities are endless. The point is whatever you can do to up the ante on customer service helps you to keep your existing customers and ensure more brand loyalty.