While one of our members was reading Richard Buckingham’s book, Customer Once, Client Forever, he stumbled on the term, superserving in relation to customer service and customer relationship management (CRM). He brought the term to the team’s attention. Superserving customers means going beyond customers’ expectations. It means going the extra mile by not just meeting but exceeding customers’ service expectations as a customer retention and customer value enhancement strategy. Those entrepreneurs who have travelled the extra mile for customers will testify that it has no traffic jam as many businesses are contend with just meeting customers’ expectations. Superserving your customers is about sacrificing short-term gains for customers’ lifetime value.
Superserving your customers builds sound and lasting relations with your customers. Cultivating healthy relations creates a situation where customers cease to see you and your enterprise as just suppliers of goods and services to meet their various needs. The relationship grows from a transactional one to relational one. This builds loyalty and brand preference. All this forms a firm foundation for repeat and referral business as positive word of mouth spreads among your happy customers. Above all this, superserving your customers makes your customers’ lives easier as they come to rely on your enterprise and its brands to solve their lives’ problems. They may even come rely on your enterprise on issues which are outside your line of business because of the depth of your relationship with them. The term got us thinking of various ways which you can use to superserve your customers. We give some of them in the following paragraphs.
• Stay in touch
Staying in touch with your customers makes them feel valued. Even if you do not have a business issue to discuss with them just phone and say hello to them and they will value your brand very highly. Call them to establish how your enterprise can help them to make their processes or products better. Sometimes customers get busy and forget certain important processes like renewing their insurance policy. If you run an insurance broking enterprise do not just send a blanket reminder e-mail message. Craft a personalised message addressed to a specific person about each enterprise’s specific insurance needs. If you have information about new insurance products which you think can help your customers also include it in the message. A blanket reminder is marketing and a personalised message is cultivating relations which simultaneously helps both organisations to meet their goals. Customers have needs but none of them enjoys being marketed to.
• Have your customers at heart
Customers are people or organisations which bring custom or business to an enterprise. Do not regard and treat your customers as per this definition. They are more than that. Have them at heart always. Always strive to help them achieve their business goals. If you stumble on information which you think can help them to improve their processes, by all means, pass it to them. This can be articles from the mainstream media or trade journals. Also pass to them information on business opportunities which you think they are better placed to exploit such as tenders. Link your customers to members of your business network whom you feel will benefit them. If they land an accolade do not wait until they phone or visit you. Phone them and congratulate them straight away. They will feel much cherished. Such small gestures will position your enterprise as a business which cares for its customers’ success and not just the revenue which they bring. If you run a business to customer enterprise, use your customer e-mail database to mail them tips and hints on various issues related to your line of business.
• Treat them like royalty
There is a business philosophy which says that the market has enough customers for everyone. While this may be true, guard your customers jealously as you stand to benefit from long-term business through repeat business and referrals. Treat them like royalty. Deal with each customer as if its your only customer. Listen to their concerns and act on them quickly and effectively. Demonstrate that you spare no effort or resource when it comes to serving your customers.
• Ask them how they want to be served
Many enterprises lose customers because they do not think that asking customers how they want to be served is a good idea. They feel that asking customers will present them (enterprises) as clueless about the business they are running. Nothing is further from the truth. In order to superserve your customers you have to know their expectations. Most enterprises that we know do not combine their main line of business with prophesying customers’ needs. They ask. Even after satisfactorily serving a customer ask how else you can help them and they will open up on other needs which they had not told you because they thought that they were business for another day.
• Thank you
A simple thank you goes a long way in winning the heart of your customer. This is because it is rare to get or if one gets it, it is said in so perfunctory a manner that the insincerity will be palpable. Go beyond mere words. Write thank you notes to your customers and accompany them with small but meaningful gifts such as branded mugs, pens or clocks. As an entrepreneur write these letters personally and sign them off yourself. The practice of giving away promotional items is common in marketing but your customers will be able to differentiate your gesture from common marketing by the wording of your note. Tell them how their business is helping yours to grow and they will feel valued.
Superserving is not a one-week wonder. It is a strategy. It has to be properly planned and executed well and consistently in order for it to yield results. Whether is succeeds or not lies squarely in your hands as the entrepreneur.
GreatBrands 