Walk in Your Customer’s Shoes

One of the most powerful questions that you can ask yourself as a business owner is, “Would I like to be a client of mine? If this jarring and straight-to-the-point question is not met with a resounding yes, then either consciously or subconsciously, you know that something is not working within your organization when it comes to customer service and your customers’ experience with you.

There are several reasons that impact the decision of a client to leave you and go to work with another supplier, and usually it is not because they are looking for the same old, same old. Some may leave for pricing, but they are not really a loss, as such clients can send you on a race to the bottom and into the poorhouse, in no time at all.

Let us look at a few areas that you need to examine if you want to walk in the “happy shoes” of your clients.

1. Little or No Innovation: Simply put, it is particularly challenging now to keep ahead of the pack if you are hoping to make a living with what worked well for you ten or twenty years ago. Some clients are very hesitant to tell you that you are not innovating and, as such, move on to another supplier, and you may end up never really knowing why. For example, if you work in the global mobility sector and you are still foisting face-to-face home searches on your clients, it may be a good idea to flip things and start offering virtual home searches; this may save your client a lot in terms of energy, expense, and time.

2. Inconsistent Customer Service: While each member of your staff should have their own personality, a client should not experience a huge difference in customer experience when working with different staff members on your team. If working with ‘Maria’ is always great and she really does a magnificent job, then why does the same experience not get replicated when they work with ‘Anne’? Clearly, the inner workings of your organization are not followed and executed in the same manner. This hit-and-miss approach to a customer’s experience, especially when dealing with a company that sends you multiple staff members to service, could eventually end up with you losing the client. The danger, once again, is that the client may not bring this to your attention, so they just move on without a word. You must have processes in place that clearly show that each client is getting a great customer experience, regardless of who takes care of them within your organization.

3. Your Team Is Not Leading: As the boss, you are not the only person who should be leading. Each staff member should be encouraged to lead by sharing ideas openly without the fear of being shut down or, worse, reprimanded. Only by fostering the concept of each team member being able to bring their ideas to the table will you be able to create a high-energy and rewarding workplace. Team members should be taught in advance how to share ideas and how to give feedback; the critiquing of ideas should be done in a constructive manner and not in a rude or obnoxious fashion. Team members must feel safe and supported when sharing their ideas with their coworkers and boss.

4. Ethics: Another area that will cause many clients to run for the hills is if they feel they are dealing with a company or a team of people that lack ethics. Being honest, dependable, and transparent are valuable commodities, and if you lack them, you may end up attracting clients that you may not want and losing those that you do. Being considered untrustworthy in business can be devastating, as many people will not want to work with you, given that they feel your word has no value. Very quickly, you gain the reputation of being unreliable, two-faced, and flaky. If you are aiming at being elite, bespoke, and creating your legacy work — forget the excuses, or being too tired — you simply cannot lose the trust of your customers. Once you gain a stellar reputation as a trustworthy business professional, clients will flock to you in time, even if you are not the cheapest, due to the high cost in every way possible of working with unreliable, erratic, and disloyal people.

5. Be Impeccable: When I talk about being impeccable, I mean that you leave nothing to chance and that you always operate at the highest standard. You make sure that everyone on your team, including yourself as well as third party vendors, is working to ensure the best customer experience possible. Some examples of being impeccable include: You get it right and you do not make it right. When you must make things right for a client instead of getting them right from the beginning, you very often lose their faith in you. If you work with third party vendors for any part of the service, you must make sure they are vetted and that they are professionals and not dilettantes. Being impeccable also means that you do not promise to do things that you will forget about later or do halfheartedly.

Walking constantly in your customer’s shoes, if done correctly with passion, focus, and sincerity, will show you where you need to improve and where you can double down on what you are doing well.

Some vital aspects to consider include the following:

• Customer service is about people, and people will always remember how you made them feel. Make sure it is positive.
• Excuses and results cannot exist at the same time; you either provide one or the other.
• Do not define yourself by sector competition; if the bar is set low, you may not be as good as you think.
• Discover the high-value problem (HVP) that your client needs solved and identify tangible metrics that show your solution is working for your client.
• Provide unrivaled attention to detail.

Staying ahead in today’s market requires constant attention to your customers because, in many cases, customer loyalty, especially if they can find what you are providing easily elsewhere, means that your clients can move away from you without a second thought.

Make your customers your number one priority every day and take a walk in their shoes often so you can see things from their perspective — this will make all the difference in deciding what you need to change and what you need to ramp up on when it comes to customer service.

If you require any case-specific assistance, please feel free to contact me www.damienofarrell.com

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