Australian Credit Stationers: customer service and company policy

Disclaimer: The content of these articles is to be used as a general guide only. Professional advice should be sought before taking any action relating to the points discussed in these articles.

CUSTOMER SERVICE AND COMPANY POLICY

November and December are two of the biggest months for purchasing for businesses and consumers. You may be buying Christmas presents, taking advantage of post Christmas sales or purchasing stock for your business.
Consider yourself as a consumer for a moment. All of your purchases would have triggered a positive, neutral or negative response. This response is often determined by whether you received exceptional service, satisfactory service or poor service.
Most businesses give all three types of service. It is not your management, your staff nor comparison with industry standards which directly determines the level of service your business offers. Instead, it is the perception of your customers, and only your customers. They will judge the quality of your service. Your customers will compare the service offered by your business with that offered by other businesses, particularly those in the same industry.
What can you do to ensure the majority of your customers receive exceptional service, some receive satisfactory service and very few receive poor service? Giving regular exceptional service costs money. If it didn't, then we would have no queues in supermarkets or banks and no need for sophisticated telephone queuing systems.
Nobody expects businesses to give such exceptional service that their costs exceed their revenue. Much improvement in customer service can cost very little because often all that is needed is a change of attitude. How important are your customers? How far will you go to look after your customers? What is the attitude of management? Do your staff have the same attitude? What authority do your staff have to give exceptional service?
Below are 12 policy statements. These may or may not be part of your company policy. If they are not, consider whether you should change.

Maximise the long term rather than the short term profit of your business.
This philosophy will enable your staff to look at customer complaints in a different way. In some cases it is preferable to make a loss on a sale if there is the expectation of future profitable repeat business from that customer.
If mistakes are made in packing or invoicing or delivering services to your customers try and make them in your customers' favour rather than your own.
This is an inexpensive way of giving good service, but is often overlooked by businesses despite having expensive quality control procedures.
Exceed your customers' expectations.
The opportunities are endless here. Provide faster service than promised, offer a free gift, add a personal touch, or simply deliver more than your customer ordered.
Have a strong money back guarantee.
This is a fundamental component of marketing. The law states that if your customer is not satisfied you are obliged to repair, replace or refund. What you do is your choice but if at all possible try and offer the choice to your customer. By taking the risk out of doing business with your company you are offering security to your customer. It is rare for a customer to take advantage of your money back guarantee.
If a customer complains, your answer should be "What can I do to fix the problem".
How you deal with customer complaints goes a long way to determining how serious you are about customer service. Treat complaints as an opportunity rather than a problem. Be prepared to make a short term loss because if you fix the problem your customer will be likely to do much more business with you in the future. It is also worth trying to do a little bit more than just fix the problem.
Take care to invoice your customers promptly and accurately.
This will save time both for yourself and your customers and will help you get paid more quickly.
Handle customer enquiries quickly and accurately.
This is a very simple thing to do and is certain to please your customers and result in more and earlier sales.
Do special favours for your most profitable customers.
It is a fact of life that some customers are more valuable than others. You and your staff need to identify them and be sure to do whatever it takes to keep these customers happy. Any extra costs incurred in looking after these customers can be worthwhile in the long run.
Minimise the time it takes for your customers to do business with you.
Serve your customers quickly in your retail store. Don't keep them waiting on the telephone too long. Repair your customer's car ahead of schedule. Approve credit quickly. Do whatever you can to save your customers' time because this may be precious to them.
Minimise the cost to your customers in doing business with your company.
The options here are more limited. Have a toll free number, a 13 number or an email address. Minimise paperwork for your customers.
Choose suppliers which give you exceptional service.
Your suppliers may restrict the level of service you can offer your customers, so choose suppliers who value customer service as highly as you do.
Provide favourable credit terms for your customers.
Simply by offering credit to your customers you are offering an extra service to your customers. The greater the credit period the more valuable is this service to your customers. You can also assist your customers by being lenient if they are slightly late with their payments. If your customer does not pay you after a polite reminder be firm but fair and avoid threatening your customer for as long as possible. The collection process is a vital part of customer service and assists in keeping your customers happy and hence increasing repeat business.

When reviewing your customer service policy just remember an old rule. Satisfy a customer and repeat business will follow and you may get one referral. Upset a customer and that customer will do business elsewhere and tell five friends not to do business with you.
Exceptional customer service can breed exceptional customer loyalty to the extent that your customers enjoy doing business with you, and will do business with you even if your competitors' prices are lower. They will pay your account well before it is due. They will recommend you to many others and sometimes even thank you for being such a good supplier.