Customer relationship building

Customer service, I believe is the backbone of every organization. Even if you have a high quality product but very poor customer service I can guarantee you that your efforts in building up a good marketing scheme will all go in vain. Your customer service must be very strong. They are the bread and butter of every organization. That is why it is very important to choose people with the right attitude for your customer service. They must be employees who love to share, care and help people. I mean the thing that goes with the old saying going an extra mile to serve your customers. It is like you really value their businesses and their needs as your own.

This maybe old fashioned but I hate the idea of looking at the time clock and ending conversations abruptly when the customer is not satisfied or done yet. You know just when to start and end a conversation. You don’t have to be a cold frontliner just to finish your service in time like watching a stopwatch always. I realized that in every customer interaction we have to be flexible with time and flexible with the speed of the customer inquiring. We go by the speed of the customer not ours. So I guess you have to put those stopwatches in your drawers and try to stop pressing yourself running against time and just be comfortable facing your customers. So unless you are working in fastfoods or some place where you really have to set those stopwatches on the run with the stomachs of your customers then you are to keep pace with the speed of your customers.

Live chat and phone customer service should think of this. It is a matter of making your customers feel at home because the moment they dislike something about your service they are not coming back. Try to get customers for your employers from referrals of your present database. Word by mouth advertising will do your organization good. That is imaging of the company. You give good customer service and they all come back and buy at you even at a higher price. Take note: even at a higher price they will all come back to you.

Getting customers is easy. They buy at you once and leave you. That is why the focus of our discussion is strong customer service. Get your customers, serve them well, go an extra mile and maintain a good customer relationship with them. Let me give you an example from my personal experience at the bank. I am working before in the city then transferred to a province.




An example of customer service:

When a customer enters the door, I greet them and acknowledge their presence. If I am not busy, I would go and offer them newspapers so they may read while they are waiting for their priority numbers. In the Philippines, it takes time before you reach your number. So I presume that nobody would want to wait for long. It is a waste of time so I give them something to read and get occupied at the moment. When somebody like an old lady is coughing and I see that it is kind of continuous, I go to the kitchen, get some water and give her water. I assume she needs to drink because she was coughing and the throat might be dry. Other people who are filing and waiting for long for the transaction to be approved from the Head Office, I send them to their houses and get their cell numbers. When the transaction is approved I send them messages and they come. So their time is not wasted waiting and they appreciate it. Some would like to wait so if I have anything like biscuits or candies I will offer it to them. I don’t think of the little expense it may cost me, I just think that you have to be compassionate in serving your customers. You have to think of your employers too that they need to maintain and grow their current customer database. For a lot of the clients, I note their birthdays and greet them and make my officemates greet them too early morning in their birthdays. If I can’t greet them early morning I send them text messages to say hi and happy birthday.



The aftermath of my personalized customer service:

Clients will sometimes visit and just drop by even without business transactions to personally deliver food. Yes, smile they know my weakness. Those who got husbands from outside the country will always have something for me like makeup, chocolates or perfume when their husbands arrive or sent them packages. It was fun.

Extended service:

There are customers living outside the country who do not know how to use some features of the product and will call me and ask me to teach them. They call long distance ask for me and I teach them. Sometimes I rent a computer at the café after my work and teach them (I don’t have a computer at that time yet). I love to help people. When they need a househelp or something like where to buy what and where to hire what, I give them referrals or businesses. All of them are gaining from it. I refer one client to this and refer the other to this, they all get the benefit. They grow so my employer grows too. That must be the way customer service works, personalized service. This is for a face-to-face encounter not online. They need something done the next day they call and I appreciate them calling me first so I get to respond to it early the next day. This does not happen always. Requests are not made always so I don’t really mind them asking some questions not related. Sometimes they ask where to find a lawyer for separation, okay I have a friend whom I can recommend ha ha. It is fun serving people. Just feel it and you will get with the flow and enjoy serving them.

Focus on touch

I am talking about human touch not robotic. If you know what I mean you will see that they need warm kind of customer service. Think of your customers then value your employers so you may be able to serve both well. We all have experienced calling with robots right, like dial 1 for card, dial 2 for help or whatever. Don’t be like a robot. Put a little human touch on the conversation so they will come back also. I don’t like the idea of yes may I help you, this is your answer, then goodbye, next please. Put a little human touch like, hey you got a nice new hair, you got a nice dress, then they will smile and talk a little. They won’t stay long at your table if they see you got a lot of customers. Work while you talk, value time. They won’t stay for an hour I guess, it’s just a 2 minutes 3 minutes side talk. Then they will return and accompany their referrals. I experience clients who will not transact with other staff when I was absent. They will wait for me to serve them. It was amazing how you could make them wait for you to come back from sick leave. Others who hear some kind of rumors about your employers may threaten to leave. Your customer relationship building comes very important in this aspect and they stay when you tell them to stay. I have experienced that before in a lot of times and they stay when I tell them to stay because I will be there to serve them. Honesty and straightforward transparent comments pay off. They will trust you and do business with you more.

Culture difference

This is very relevant in Philippines settings but you can observe how to do your customer service there. Hire people with the right attitude. Skills can be obtained or learned but attitudes and personalized ways are not just obtainable because that is innate. Make your customers feel they are dealing with humans. Always be patient, flexible and never quarrel with a customer. When there is problem don’t argue. Please refer them to the supervisor. Frontliners are not to argue or quarrel. For anything that will have some kind of special arrangement, please refer to the manager or supervisor and let them come back for the processing or paperworks. It is safer that way and you could maintain good customer relationships that way. I repeat again. This insight might be outdated for you or too friendly or too accommodating but you may get relevant tips on how to improve your customer service skills. Never think of what you can get when you deal with people. Always think of their comfort first and the benefits will arrive later when you need them to stay and express loyalty to the organization. Remember competition is everywhere. Take your customer service skills as a leverage to outdo competition.







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