By Vidya Sainath, Bardess Consultant
As a consultant for the past decade and working in the IT industry for almost 15 years, I have always believed in the mantra that providing good customer service is an integral part of my job. It is in fact an integral part of any employee’s job role and not an extension of it. After all ‘CUSTOMERS’ are the most important asset for a business and there is no business without them.
I recently read somewhere that excellent customer service is the process by which your organization delivers its services or products in a way that allows the customer to access them in the most efficient, fair, cost effective, and humanly satisfying and pleasurable manner possible. Good customer service is all about bringing customers back. It is about keeping them happy to pass positive feedback about your business along to others, who may then try the product or service you offer for themselves and in turn become repeat customers. In today’s world where social media plays a very big role in how businesses grow, one cannot underestimate the power of positive customer feedback.
Here are a few key variables or characteristics that we can all practice to provide good customer service, which will in turn ensure high customer satisfaction:
- Know what the customer needs. This can be achieved by being a good listener and providing undivided attention.
- Once we understand a customer’s current needs, anticipate their future needs.
- Make customers feel important and appreciated. Always look for ways to help your customers. When something goes wrong, apologize. It’s easy and customers like it.
- Empower and train employees to make decisions on their own to help a customer rather than deferring to upper management.
- Be truthful to your commitments. Overpromising commitments to the customer is not a solid base for sustained excellent customer service.
- Obtain regular feedback. Encourage and welcome suggestions about how you could improve.
Customer Service is not a 21st century concept, in fact Mahatma Gandhi is quoted as saying:
A customer is the most important visitor on our premises.
He is not dependent on us. We are dependent on him.
He is not an interruption in our work – he is the purpose of it.
We are not doing him a favor by serving him. He is doing us a favor by giving us the opportunity to serve him.
A company that best demonstrates these excellent customer service characteristics will have a distinct advantage over its competition. We at Bardess put these rules to practice and always strive to provide the best customer service. Our proof is in our customer feedback and testimonials.
About the Author
Vidya Sainath has over 15 years in IT Industry working in both engineering and business operations. Vidya’s work includes gathering requirements , design, development, implementation of business solutions , project management , data analytics and metrics reporting for a diverse clientele. She is now using her experience at Bardess consulting tohelp resolve critical client business issues, identify customer process improvement opportunities, and improve the overall data quality in the areas of Service Contract management. Her expertise in managing large volumes of data along with her great analytical and troubleshooting skills helps to ensure that clients get the best solutions for their requirements.
