Customer Support – Make or break with it!
I really can’t stressed enough how important customer support really is. Make it extremely super duper important!
Whether is it just a simple email follow up, an answer to a query or a thank you letter, plain little things like these go a long way in establishing a nice cosy relationship with your customer. The very people whom your business is relying on for survival.
Building up trust and credibility with your customer is to me, a vital key to long term business success. Customers like to feel important and wish that their needs are being taken of. For a service provider, it is of paramount importance that such expectations are being met.
You will want to constantly give value back to them. Overdeliver and basically keep them happy, leaving them wanting for more from you.
Needless to say, the last thing you want to do is to piss them off!
One sure way to get into your customer’s ‘good’ books is to ignore repeated query emails. I know. I’ve been there. And seriously, you really want to curse and swear like no tomorrow especially if the query is regarding an important issue.
Recently I had a very bad experience with PayPal. I shalln’t go into details, but I was extremely disappointed and not to mention, angry, by the level of support a so-called ‘established’ payment processing company has rendered to me.
Let just say it was an urgent issue that I need to resolve. And no help was forthcoming even after repeated emails after emails. It did finally arrived though, after what seemed like eternity, by the time, whereby the issue has already been resolved!
Enough of lousy service!
Let me commend 2 great services provided to me.
First that comes to mind is my hosting company, hostgator. I met with many problems when setting up my sites, but I am happy to say that their support team was there all the way, ready to help out ever quickly and efficiently with my never-ending problems. Good job!
The other is by Web CEO, a company that provides me with a free fantastic search engine optimization cum website promotion cum website traffic analyzing cum website maintenance tool. It also includes a built-in FTP engine and many other wonderful features which among them is a very good integrated keyword tool. While sometimes you will associate free software as somewhat crappy, this is a genuinely good tool by any standards.
More importantly, the level of support is highly commendable as well. They have support angels (very fancy names, but I like it) that reply to my every queries in very detailed fashion. And I really mean detailed. They gave more then required. In addition, their emails are very personalized, with their own photos attached so I can see how they look like. It’s a great way to establish a connection.
Just simply, they overdelivered in their service.
And great service just really makes my day. =) Makes me happy like a bird.
Yes customer support is really darnnnnnnnn important!
Go the extra mile.
Go the extra distance.
Do more than required if time allows.
Invest some time and effort to support, and you will be rewarded back many many folds.
On a sidenote, if you are customer receiving great support, do be generous in your praises and compliments on a job well done. It will only motivate and spur them on to provide even better customer service and support. A win-win proposition!
Technorati tags: Customer Service, Support, Web CEO, Hostgator
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