Service Delivery Fundamentals

Providing a good customer experience is not just “nice to do”, it is a must-do. Whether you are a solopreneur with a handful of customers or a large corporation with thousands of customers- service delivery fundamentals are important to understand and put in action.

Lucky for us, most customers fundamentally want the same things. They want things to be easy, simple, and personalized.  Customers want things done quickly with minimal effort on their part. They also want to feel in control and empowered to do business how they choose to do business.   Finally, they want all of this with a smile 🙂

Just think of yourself.  What companies are you loyal to?  Why are you loyal to them? Likely, because they make you feel empowered, special, and make things easy for you.

Let’s take a look at some service delivery fundamentals to help you improve your customer experience and create loyal customers.

 

Make it Easy to Find You

Your interactions with your customers begin well before they ever talk to you.  By ensuring that it is easy for customers to find you and contact you, it sets the experience off on the right foot.

This also means knowing where your customers are and ensuring that you are there too.  For example, if you have a lot of millennial customers you will want to make sure that you have a good Facebook or Instagram presence.  Whereas Baby Boomers may rely on contacting you via phone more so you would want to have your phone number visible and easy to find. if you don’t know where your customers are hanging out online, ask them.

 

Make a Great First Impression

You have just a few seconds to make a great first impression with your customers.  In fact, some studies show that customers can start to form an impression of you within milliseconds. That is not a lot of time so you better make that time count!

You can make a great first impression by making sure that you set a professional and personal tone. Smiling (even if you are not in front of the customer) and offering a warm greeting helps you accomplish this.

A quick tip is to pretend that every customer is a friend that you haven’t seen for a while. It seems silly but it will help you be more excited and committed to helping them.

If you are helping customers in person, making sure that your physical location is clean, clear of clutter, and professional is a necessity. You must also pay close attention to your own physical appearance, making sure that you are appropriately dressed and wear a warm, welcoming smile.

 

Be Knowledgable

One common myth when it comes to customer service is that you need to “wow” your customers in order to provide a good experience. In most cases, that is not the case. The customer simply wants to get their needs met quickly and accurately.  If you can’t provide the basic needs the customer is looking for, trying to “wow” them will only further annoy them.  Being knowledgeable and knowing how to help your customer is the most basic service delivery fundamental.

An exercise that will help you become knowledgeable quickly is to write down the top 5 customer requests that you tend to struggle. Ask yourself what interaction do you dread? What do you have the most complaints about?  Once you identify those issues spend some time researching the issue and identify the steps to complete the request. Not only will researching help you but this can also serve as a quick reference guide.  Sometimes we just need to take a step back and recognize where our opportunities are.

 

Be Clear

Another service delivery fundamental is to be clear.  This can mean a couple of different things.   For one, being clear means that you speak slowly and clearly so that the customer can understand you.  This is especially true if you are on the phone where the customer can’t see you.  You should also avoid jargon and slang that customers may not be familiar with.

Being clear also means that you make it clear about the process.  What does the customer need to do? What are you supposed to do? When should they expect to hear from you?   A lot of customer frustration comes from not understanding the process so the more clear and upfront you are, the better it will be for everyone.

 

Reduce Customer Effort

The more effort that a customer is required to put in to do business with you, the less likely they will come back.  We live in a world of one-click shopping. Requiring a customer to jump through hoops just won’t work anymore.

Look for ways that you can take some of the effort away from the customer.   It can be as simple as walking as writing down information for a customer instead of having them write it down, transferring a call instead of having the customer call, or contacting a customer instead of having them contact you.

 

Ask For Feedback

Finally, always ask for feedback on how you can make the experience better for the customer.  Customers will tell you what they like and dislike about their experiences if you ask them.

You also don’t have to wait until the end of the interaction to ask them.  if you are going to be working with a customer longer than one interaction (for example, if you are helping them purchase a home), ask them throughout the process. For example, at the end of a call you can casually ask them “Mr. Smith, would you prefer more or less communication from me?” or “Am I contacting you the right way/right times?”.  Many times a bad experience is simply uncommunicated expectations so give them a chance to communicate them to you.

Each industry and each type of interaction surely has its nuances but if you follow these service delivery fundamentals you will surely win loyal customers over time.

Want to learn more? Take our Make Your Customers Love You course! This course will walk you through how you can improve your service delivery to create more loyal customers. Whether you work in customer service or own your own business, this course will walk you through all of the steps that you need to do to improve your customer service.

Make Your Customers Love You Course 

What service fundamentals do you value as a customer?   What annoys you?  Leave a comment below!

 

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