By Bob Meyer

Here’s the remaining four steps in a seven-step action plan that will help you target your best clients, build a standout service operation and, in turn, produce a more profitable year:

Step #4: Put yourself in your customer’s shoes.

The sure way to forge connections with customers is to understand their business so well that you can offer comprehensive solutions to their problems.

The goal is to show you care enough to work overtime to make your client look terrific in front of his own customers.

Step #5: Decide whether to offer tiered services.

Excellent overall service for all customers must be your mission. But you can still segment your market and charge a premium for special or more costly requests.

Although tiered-level service—with everyone clear on what’s available and what they’re getting for their money—may be new to your industry, the airlines have been at it for years.

They provide first-class and coach service and charge accordingly, but the plane still takes off and lands at the same time and place for both customers.

Step #6: Mobilize your entire team to work for the customer.

A well-trained, consistent core staff offers the highest level of customer care.

Make it clear to everyone at your company that the needs of the customer are always first and foremost. And don’t skimp when giving your employees the knowledge and training to do what it takes to make customers happy.

Step #7: Own your problems; own your customers.

There’s nothing worse than losing your customer’s confidence.
Yet, as you well know, some missions really are impossible. And no company’s perfect.

So what do you do when you make a mistake? First, own up to it. Then, make up for it.

Finally, draw lessons from the experience because the most useful and instructive learning grows from the recognition and analysis of failure. (Unfortunately, most entrepreneurs prefer not to look back.)

However, if you move quickly and effectively to fix a customer problem, you may even turn mistakes into bonding opportunities. Then, after the error, your reputation and profile might actually be enhanced in the customer’s eyes.

To sum up, the real key to success is to win your customers’ loyalty by anticipating their needs—and then delivering exactly what they want, perhaps before they ask.

That way, when they demand that your product or service walks, talks and sings, you will know from experience that it also needs to dance!!

This entry was posted on Saturday, March 17th, 2007 at 10:44 am and is filed under Entrepreneurs & Small Business. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.