I wrote a new article recently, but didn’t actually make it available before this weekend for the public eye. The article is about doing right by the customer. About being adamant about delivering great customer service.
The article was sparked by two incidents that I witnessed just recently and it got me to recollect on my past experiences and what I have learned over the years. With superior customer service not only will you have a customer base of raving fans, who will be very loyal to you, but also to which you will be able to offer premium products or services that you may actually be able to charge a premium price for. Premium prices can sometimes make for real wealth building for your business or for yourself personally.
But be aware! If your premium prices do not come with premium value. In fact if you are not delivering superior value, preferably delivering more value than what you are charging for or at least a perceived value that exceed what you are charging for, then your business can quickly suffer a dramatic whiplash and drop in result, customer loyalty and reputation Your results may quickly drop as part of your customer base more quickly than you might imagine drop away, losing customers along the way, who may actually have been happy with you all along, but who are being redirected by the dissatisfied to try a provider somewhere else.
I know what I’m talking about. Both from the perspective of being a client who experienced both the upside and the downside of this topic. But also I’m also in the know from running a business in which we were able to charge premium prices, delivering premium services, but which unfortunately all of a sudden failed at delivering at the high level of customer service, satisfaction and value at some point and which then suddenly also suffered the consequences. Although we subsequently made good on our service the damage was already done and getting the customers that were lost back home proved very difficult indeed. We had broken their trust.
May I suggest that you read the article, so that you can avoid the same pitfall in your business or indeed be able to enjoy the upside if you can manage to deliver beyond customer expectation and superior value for price even if you are charging premium prices? Here is the article:
Great Customer Service – A Key To Longevity And Prosperity In Business
In passing, in my story above, I’m referencing the limousine service company that I used to own and operate in Denmark. If you by chance is one of the customers of mine from that business and whom I failed, I sincerely and deeply apologize for the fact that we did not deliver at the standards at which we were once famous for. Like I said, we did get it corrected before I eventually sold the business off, but our failure and lack in delivery was never supposed to have taken place. I would like to say that this was all due to a non-functioning team in my company at one point in time (which unfortunately was the case for a dreaded time), but ultimately, the fault was mine and the failure was mine. I deeply apologize. Lesson learned though and I hope that is a consolation to some degree though.
I hope other may learn from my experiences.
