Customer Care For Business Owners

Critical to keeping your customers happy is understanding them and the way they think. For example, customers do business on the basis of emotional desire - they want what they want when they want it. Customers also tend to gravitate toward a retailer they like. Most customers have a strong tendency to stick with businesses with which they are familiar, and are slow to change buying habits unless given a very good reason.

Customers generally think that they get better service at smaller retail shops than larger ones so live up to those expectations. Keep in mind, too, that the big-box stores with thousands of locations can "afford" to lose a customer here-and-there but if you're a small retail shop you can't afford to lose ANY customers. Treat each person walking in to your store as your only one.

When your csutomers are displeased, even by a small disappointment or discourteous word, various surveys have revealed that customers tell from seven to eleven people about their dissatisfaction.

An important key to serving customers well is this: don't try to change them. Here are five specific steps to help you take full advantage of the critical element of customer care:

• Conduct your own survey. Profit from the ideas, suggestions, and complaints of your present and former customers. Talk and meet with your customers. Ask questions. Learn their attitudes, what they want, and what they dislike.
• Check employees' telephone manners periodically. Bad telephone handling can undermine other constructive efforts to build a profitable enterprise.
• Rules such as prompt answering and a cheerful attitude of helpfulness are of critical importance. Have someone whose voice is unfamiliar play the role of a customer or prospective customer, preferably a difficult one.
• Make customer service a team effort. Use group meetings, memos, posters, and in-house publications to build customer consciousness throughout the organization. Continually drive home the crucial rule that getting and holding customers requires team play; invite employees' ideas.
• Extend your efforts after hours. It's the friendly feelings people have that draw them to you and your business. Take advantage of the relaxed atmosphere of social occasions or a neighborly chat over the back fence to turn friends into customers or to reinforce the loyalty of existing ones. 

You may also find of interest:  The Retail Golden Rule and Helpful Service Ideas for Retailers