by Justin Waggoner, KSU Extension Beef Cattle Specialist, Garden City, KS
Good customer service is essential to any business or organization. It does not matter if it is a restaurant or a tow truck service, having staff members that leave customers or anyone that encounters your business with that “wow that was great” feeling directly influences the bottom line. Customer service has become more important than ever as consumers are now gathering information and making purchasing decisions based on the experiences of others reviews.
What is customer service? Customer service is often defined as the assistance provided by a company to those that purchase the goods or services it provides. Now on to the tough part, how do we as business or organization provide that assistance? Susan Ward (www.thebalancesmb.com) offers a few simple things that business can do to improve their customer service experiences. First, answer the phone. Potential customers want to talk to a person and don’t want to leave a message. Second, don’t make promises you can’t keep. As the old saying goes “say what you are going to do and do what you said you were going to.” Third, listen. Simply listening to what a potential customers need is important, there is nothing worse than listening to sales pitch for something you don’t want.Fourth, be helpful even if you don’t make the sale, today. The service provided today has the potential to turn in to something much larger in the future. Fifth, train your staff to do something extra, like showing the customer where the product is located. Lastly, empower your staff to offer something extra without asking permission.
