Don’t Overlook This Piece of Your Marketing Plan

So you’ve developed your marketing plan, fully funded your budget, launched your campaigns, optimized your website, held your event, aligned your content, your ads are flawless; you are ready to go and grow. Then when your customers come through your door the wheels come off because they have a terrible experience.

While you can design a brilliant creative campaign, have all of the pieces in place, but if your team isn’t ready to deliver the best possible customer service/experience, then all of the money you put into marketing will have been wasted. It behooves you to make sure that you don’t lose focus on what can be the most critical piece in your marketing plan; customer service.

A pair of new books offer up some great advice that truly spans the business spectrum that you can put in place with your team to either improve or begin your approach to customer service/experience.

Hello! And Every Little Thing That Matters – Impactful Ideas for Treating Your Customers Right – Kate Edwards

Could it really be as simple as saying Hello, when your customer enters your business? The answer from customer service consultant Kate Edwards is YES. Edwards who consults with some of the finest dining establishments in the world is out with a step by step guide, Hello! And Every Little Thing That Matters – Impactful Ideas for Treating Your Customers Right that businesses can plug into to help improve their customer experience.

Think about the last time you visited a retail establishment, restaurant, medical office or any place of business; did the staff make you feel welcome? If they did, what did they do to make that happen? And if they didn’t, what was missing? Did it seem like your being there was a bother that the staff didn’t really want to deal with? Was the greeting your received mechanical and without feeling?

Edwards make the case that the little things, like a greeting can make a difference and set the tone for your customers experience. But it’s more than just tossing off a “Hello and welcome to XYZ widgets” it’s about how you deliver the greeting and what follows; are you making what could be a simple visit a memorable experience.

If you deliver that personalized experience, it sets you apart from your competition and gets people’s attention in a busy, overloaded world. Edwards serves up plenty of ideas that you can put in place today.

501 Ways to Roll Out the Red Carpet for Your Customers: Easy-to-Implements Ideas to Inspire Loyalty, Get New Customers and make a Lasting Impression – Donna Cutting (Career Press)

Speaking of plenty of ideas, how about 501 of them? Donna Cutting, author, keynote speaker, founder of Red-Carpet Learning Systems and customer service expert services up plug and play ideas that cut a broad swath through a variety of industries in her new book 501 Ways to Roll Out the Red Carpet for Your Customers: Easy-to-Implements Ideas to Inspire Loyalty, Get New Customers and make a Lasting Impression.

Cutting takes things a step further by offering leaders insight into how to not only develop and improve customer service plans, but how to make the transition from the white board to actual execution of these strategies. While some of the bold customer service ideas Cutting serves up are fairly industry specific. It is easy to see how many can be adapted and adopted in other industries as well.

While that first impression matters, Cutting also preaches consistency, consistency, consistency, so that your customer service is ongoing and not a one off approach. This is what will not only keep your customers coming back, but also get them advocating on your behalf; while money can’t buy word of mouth, customer service, good and bad, certainly can.