I hate it when people raise my hope but don't deliver on their promises. And even when they do, deliver less than, not even equal to or greater than the promise.
One of the greatest secrets learnt in Malcolm Gladwell's book 'The Tipping Point', is that the most effective advertising your product will ever get is word of mouth advertising.
What enhances word of mouth advertisement?
Very simple: customer satisfaction.
Recently I made an online payment for an email autoresponder 'aweber', and found out that I wasn't even ready to use it.
I knew if I didn't communicate, my account will be charged the following month whether I used the service or not. So I did a mail to support asking for a refund of my first payment since I didn't use the service, and then asked for my subscription to be canceled.
Shortly after, I received an amazing customer service mail, promising to give me whatever assistance I needed and then Downselling me(offering me a cheaper service).
They refunded my money and canceled as I requested since I wasn't ready to use the service, but I promised to do when I'm ready.
I was so impressed, I had to do a mail appreciating their customer support service, and then, guess what? I started referring and recommending their service to my friends.
But, in this part of the world, you can imagine what could have happened: I most probably won't get a refund, and worse still I could get Insulted in the end.
This is a promise; if you take care of your customers, they will take care of your business. But let's even start from here:
Number One: Employee Service:
Take care of your team: even if your present staff strength is just one, if you take good care of that staff, that staff will take care of your customers and your customers will take care of your business.
Employers who don't take good care of and teach their employees to own the business, actually don't have a business yet, as the business will only function well in their presence and do badly in their absence.
Number Two: Customer Service.
How do you increase your profit 200 percent in business? Find out what your competitors aren't doing and do it well. Also, find out how your competitors treat their customers and treat them better.
Every over-pampered and satisfied customer will always bring another one. On the other hand, every unsatisfied customer will chase away the current ones.
Number Three: Maintain and Increase Good Quality.
Quality control has been greatly compromised in many businesses. People always want to make more for less, and always want to give less for more, little wonder you buy a product today and celebrate the quality only to come back tomorrow and all you have is better packaging with a depreciating content.
Quality In business is meant to be Improved upon not compromised. Too many businesses are stagnated because they keep losing customers and making new ones everyday. The new customers they make are the ones who are getting to know their products or service for the first time, but don't make a comeback after the second time.
