Providing Superior Customer Service

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Adapted from content excerpted from the American Express® OPEN Small Business Network
You can use customer service as a powerful way to set yourself apart from your competition. Its one of the strengths a small business has, and by emphasizing customer service, you can compete with larger companies who may offer more variety, lower prices, and other perks you can't afford. But many small businesses fall short in the customer service category. Why? Ignorance is one reason. There simply are not a lot of examples of good customer service on which to model your company.

To make sure your business' customer service is top notch, find out what your competition is doing and then copy and exceed it. Read books or listen to audiotapes by people who have studied customer service-driven companies such as Neiman Marcus and see what lessons you can learn from these giants. Successful entrepreneurs are always looking for ways to improve all aspects of their business.
In the meantime, here are five maxims to help make sure you leverage your small business status to provide the best customer service possible.

1) Apologize, Don't Debate

If a customer has a problem, apologize and fix the problem. Make sure to let customers vent their grievances, even if you are tempted to interrupt and correct them. Then give them a refund, new item, or whatever will fix the problem. Debating or haggling over a refund creates ill will. Repair mistakes immediately. Keep in mind that a complaint about your company is an opportunity to turn the situation around and create a loyal customer. Obviously, there will be some customer requests that are too outrageous to comply with. If that's the case, do your best to offer a moderate, appealing alternative.

2) Feedback Keeps You Focused

Ask your customers to rate your service on a regular basis. This can be done via a short questionnaire included with every product sold or mailed to key clients. Keep the questionnaire short so that it is not a burden for customers to complete, and make sure they know they can decline to participate. Always let customers know the purpose of the survey is to serve them better. If they fill out the survey and have no problems, it is a reminder of what good service you offer. If issues do arise, they can be addressed.

3) Stay Flexible

You must be flexible when it comes to your customers and clients. This means doing a project for a client in a pinch, having an early morning meeting even if you like to sleep in, and meeting on Saturday even if you usually reserve your weekends for yourself.

Flexibility can also mean getting information for your client, even though it may not be in your area of expertise. Say, for example, you're catering a wedding and your client needs information on Irish wedding customs. It's just as easy to make a call to your local library and fax the information to your client as it is to say "I don't know anything about that." And making that extra effort will ultimately pay off with a very satisfied customer.

4) Always Say "Yes"

This doesn't mean giving up your personal will to your customers but it does mean finding a way to help customers with their requests. If you run a gift business you might wrap a present for an important client, even if you don't usually provide gift wrapping. You might stay up late to finish a project if a client suddenly has a deadline moved up, or travel in a snow storm to meet a client even if it means an unpleasant trip for you. Always saying yes, means the words "that isn't possible" should be forbidden from use in your business. You cannot afford to use them. If this sounds expensive and inconvenient, it is, but it is less expensive than losing a customer and having to spend money and time landing a new one.

5) Under Promise, Over Deliver

Make your customers believe they are important to you by always appearing to go the extra mile. Build a little cushion into a deadline and deliver early. Estimate that a job will cost more than you think, and bring it in lower.

Many small businesses make the mistake of reversing this maxim - over promising and under delivering. This is a true recipe for disaster. You may get the business, but your level of service will make it difficult to compete. If 24-hour turnaround is excellent service in your industry, don't promise it in 12 just because the customer requests it.

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Right Information for Website Users

Right Information for Website Users
I read from the book of books – the Bible one day where apostle Paul was addressing the Thessalonian people saying, “I do not want you to be ignorant, brethren, concerning those who have fallen asleep, lest you sorrow as others who have no hope” (1 Thessalonians 4:13).

People who have been airborne know the importance of announcements. Flight attendants are very careful while making series of step-by-step announcements to explain every situation on ground. Right information relieves fear and puts the passengers on alert.

Addressing a group of fearful Christians in Thessalonica, who believed that their believing loved ones who had died were gone forever and would miss out when Christ comes again, Paul comforted them that there is no cause for alarm. His words were intended to soften their fears by giving them the right information.

Right information is what has kept me to online business till this moment. If you have the right information, you are a winner already. Through right information, I was able to learn that death is not a period, it’s only a comma.

I built and hosted my first website in the year 2001 but could not succeed due to lack of adequate information. Not having the right information brought everything I ever put together on the web to a total mess. There was no further hope of going forward, but I kept moving, researching, spending money on any kind of information I come across, hoping that one day, the sun might shine on my way to success. However, a very important information I discovered recently, catapulted me to a height I never imagined as far as web-hosting and management is concerned.

This blog is solely dedicated to YOU, I mean Y-O-U, who have been searching for the right information as long as online business is concerned. This site will play host to a lot of vital information that are needed to take you to the height you desire to be. Always visit us here and learn the A-B-C of online business. This is a promise that must be fulfilled – always keep in touch!!!

Crisis: A Time To Plan And Grow

What do you do, or plan to do when you hit the bottom line in business? A lot of people may back out, others may commit suicide, but the bottom line remains the best time of planning for the wise…

Economic recession is hitting the world hard. In the heat of this problem, a lot of decisions, planning and measures are being initiated and undertaken by various arms of government and individual groups. Almost everybody is working towards a constant and an unabridged progress and better living, yet a new idea comes into place with the belief that a coin will not properly answer its name without the two sides of it – front and back.

To say the least, everything in life has two sides - the good and the bad side. Picture yourself in the place of a car owner. You just discover that your being in this position is having a comfortable way to get around (good) and having some extra costs (bad). Having more than one car means a lot of pleasure (good) and as well many distractions (bad); yet not having a car means fewer expenses, but more time and energy are required to go from one place to another. Being a business owner is a thing of joy that brings honor, but it also has a great responsibility. An employee has less responsibility, but lacks the power to make things happen. Name anything - we can always find two sides, two different perspectives for it.

That does not mean that the good and the bad sides are always well-balanced. One is usually stronger than the other, and that helps us to make decisions and focus our energy and efforts. Our perceptions of which side is strongest may vary, depending on our values, knowledge, emotions, awareness of the environment, and more.

Like everything else, crises have their good and bad sides. Most often, the bad side is painfully obvious, and the good side is hard to find. When we face a crisis, we may fear the worst and even panic; we might complain, saying that it is not fair; or we might fight to learn from the situation and overcome it. But whichever side you may face, always remember that the two sides in life are what bring out our real stuff. You may be facing a situation as hard as a stone, yet the way you face it, brings out your real self. Let me explain, a stone is a stumbling block and the inattentive person trips over it and gets hurt, yet it is a projectile to the brute – a very good weapon.

An entrepreneur sees a stone as a useful material – he builds with it. It’s a playmate to the children – they jump over it and stone carvers fashion them into beautiful statutes. The two sides are there, but it’s left for the person, the individual to make a choice – either to stumble over the stone and get hurt, or benefit from the stone and grow thereafter.

It is common to hear - especially from those who are not experiencing our headaches - that a crisis is a time to search for opportunities to grow. But it is not easy to feel that way while you have bills to pay, a market to serve, a board to report to, and so many other responsibilities, which always multiply in difficult times.

I once heard that a crisis is diving into a pool - when you do not know how to swim. Maybe there is no one around who can toss a life preserver your way. You keep going down and down. You see the bottom of the pool coming towards you. If you do not panic, when you get to the deepest place, you can push with your feet against the floor and get out of the water to breathe again. From this, you will learn a lesson for the rest of your life. You will avoid diving into a pool before learning how to swim.

But, if for some reason you do fall into another pool, you will remember that you cannot panic to find your way out. When I am in the deepest part of a crisis, I am that much closer to the floor, where I can push to get out of that situation. Ever since I learned this tactics, when I face a crisis I begin to look for opportunities.

However, when you remember that God is faithful, and understand that a temptation is a crisis, then God will prove to you that He will not let you face any crisis beyond what you can bear. Maybe He will send you a life preserver - or remind you to push when you are at the bottom of the pool.

Believe it, every economic crisis on your way in life, though with its attendant global problems, has within it a sign of a good thing to come ahead, and also a reminder that you need to approach life with a new perspective. My prayer is that this economic storm will pass over us for good; and with you and me in this generation; the world has no bigger problems than we can put heads together and solve. With proper planning, we will overcome the crisis, improve the operation of world economy, and grow in the service of God and humanity.