The 8020 Blog

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Its easy to think that the reason we want a new client is so we can make a sale however it’s more profitable when we begin to think that the purpose of a sale is to get a client.

(It’s OK if you need to read that twice!)

The real wealth in your small business lies in the quality and quantity of relationships that you have with prospects and clients.

If you have a relationship of trust and respect with many prospects and clients you can make multiple sales to them over an extended period of time - so the real value lies not in the sale, but in the client.

This different way of thinking will cause you to re-evaluate how much you are prepared to invest in order to get a new client.

It will also make you think very carefully about the levels of service you provide to those clients and how to respond when you have a client complaint to deal with.

Customer Service should not be regarded as something that we do after successful Marketing.

Customer Service needs to be seen as a part of our Marketing.

Case in point: the bank officer who neatly filed my new merchant facility application while she went on holiday for a month, with no “out of office” email message and no voice mail message to tell customers she was away, no colleagues checking her desk etc, apparently does not understand that her actions currently contribute to the Bank’s “Customer-Prevention Division”.

That, along with two other experiences of bank employees “I-get-my-paycheck-regardless-so-I-don’t-care” attitude, has me looking for another bank - as usual, my gripe is not with the local branch, it’s with the evil “Head Office” (anyone know a bank whose leaders actually walk the customer service talk?”).

By contrast, take Motor Cycle Accessories Supermarket in Sydney www.mcas.com.au. Unbelievably outstanding service including: a proactive phone call to let me know that the color of motorcycle jacket I requested would be with me in 3 days and to ask if I would prefer a different color which I could have overnight, another call to confirm my delivery address and delivery timing and yet a third call to make sure that the new jacket had arrived OK. Thank you Ryan - impressive stuff.

That “wow” customer experience has now built iron bars around me as a customer - I ain’t going anywhere else. I feel so confident that Ryan and MSAS will take care of my needs that my future orders are going to them - and I live 1,100 kilometers away from their store.

Your Customer Service Division should report to the V.P. of Marketing, even if there is only one of you in the business …  the intent is the same: always treat the opportunity to over-deliver to customers as the best marketing investment you can make, bar none.