Customer Service Tactics that Turn Clients Off

Outstanding customer service is essential if you want your business to grow and thrive. In fact, many people say that even if they love a product or service that a business provides, if the customer service is bad, they will walk away.

There are obvious ways we show customers that we care. We listen, we anticipate their needs, we appreciate the power of yes, we give more than is expected. The list goes on and on. Unfortunately, there are things we do without thinking too much about that sends subtle messages to our customers that we don’t really care about them.

Not sure what that means? Consider the following interactions we have with clients and consider how these make them feel. Do they make them feel appreciated and valued? Here are some ways you may be alienating your customers without even knowing it:

• Spamming them with generic emails despite the fact that they are regular customers and deserve highly personalized messages.
• Failing to really understand their business and exactly how it works. This includes knowing their strategic priorities so that you can aid in their business development.
• Focusing on repeat sales and retention instead of continuing to offer innovative solutions.
• Rushing to close sales instead of making sure that a customer is getting exactly what they need.
• Calling them without doing research beforehand.
• Neglecting to help bring them helpful information every now and then. Think about it, when was the last time you forwarded something of interest (an industry article, for example) to a client just because?
• Developing loyalty programs to make more sales or mine data instead of really rewarding loyalty.
• Going for the quick sale instead of focusing on relationship building.
• Avoiding opportunities to send referrals their way. We all know that nothing feels better than getting a call from a prospective customer because someone we do business with said great things about us.

Every interaction with a customer needs to showcase our concern for their success. Sure, we can always make them feel good with some entertaining banter and flimsy sales talk but this isn’t what true customer service is all about. Instead, we need to be completely focused on the long-term success of our customers and demonstrate that in every interaction we have with them.