Business Golf: Customer Service Issues Solved

 

I have been asked to speak on how golf can be used to improve customer service.  When I sat down this morning to start to write out my notes my thoughts on this subject just spilled out into this blog.

Have you ever wondered what customer service is?  I have never asked myself that questions and to define it brought up a number of questions.  Like. do I even know who my customers are?  Are where they are from?  And the big one, do I know my customers needs?

All of these questions defined what customer service is.  How can you provide service if you do not know who it is you are serving?  Yes, a lot of customer service is provided when someone calls in to discuss a problem they are having with a product or service.  Those are easy, but what about knowing your customers needs, isn’t that real customer service.  Instead of waiting for the customer to call you, why not call the customer to see if there anything they need.

Just think of how many customer service problems that would be solved if you knew your customers and their needs.  You could project how to build something better or to meet all of your customers’ needs instead of just meeting the budget.

If you knew your customers you would know if they liked your product or not.  If you knew your customers you would know if they trust what you are going to provide a quality product.  And if you know your customers at all you would know if they are going to come back to buy from you again.

Sounds like to me, customer service is knowing what your customers’ needs are and truly knowing your customer….

Now I can hear those of you who are saying, ‘come on, there is no way for me to get to know each customers I have’.  Then my questions would be, why not?  

What does it take to call each customer or have someone from your company call a list and just to ask, how are you doing, how are we doing and is there anything you need?  Not to sale them on anything, just ask, how are you doing, and if there is anything you need here is my number.

Now at first this approach is going to increase your calls to your 800# to validate if the call you made to the customer was real, and I really hope that if you are using one of the offshore resources that they don’t get too upset with people calling. Maybe you will find that you don’t need that offshore resource. 

Matter of fact I know you would not need them if you really are concern with knowing what your customers needs are and want to make products to meet those needs.

So it sounds like to me that all customer service issues would be solved if you got to know your customer’s needs.  Simple enough?  Then why not do it?

Let me know how I can help.

Scot Duke,  President of Innovative Business Golf Solutions, provides over 31 years of corporate management experience to helping small businesses improve their marketing strategies. As author of: How To Play Business Golf, Mr. Duke outlines the steps to sucessfully using golf as a business tool.  To learn more about Mr. Duke, IBGS or to purchase How To Play Business Golf visit  www.innovativebusinessgolf.com