Is your customer service as good as you think it is?
Here’s an interesting customer service statistic: 80% of companies think they give above average customer service, but only 8% of customers believe that they actually receive above average customer service.
There is clearly a huge disconnect here. Many companies are not nearly as good at delivering customer service as they think they are. Remember, if your clients are not ‘wowed’ by your customer service they may be tempted to try out another supplier.
How do you find out what your customers really think about you?
One way is to ask your customers. Few printing companies actually send customer surveys to their clients. A customer survey may sound scary, however, it doesn’t have to be a complicated exercise.
All that needs doing is a quick e-mail to a customer after a print job. It doesn’t need to be after every job. However, it’s worth sending these surveys out reasonably regularly.
So how does a survey help you?
One of the key purposes of a survey is to ask customers to give negative feedback. This may sound counter-intuitive. However, if you specifically encourage customers to say where you fall short, you are more likely to hear about the little niggles.
These are the sort of things that customers may not outright mention to you, but they prevent you from delivering the experience that they are looking for. They may even cause them look at alternative suppliers.
By hearing where you are falling short, you can begin to actively work towards solving these problems. Besides, you can’t fix what you aren’t aware of.
So how do customer surveys work as an upsell opportunity?
Another question worth asking your customers’ in a survey is what other services/products would they like you to provide. A client may be wanting products that you had never thought of offering them. This question can uncover some fantastic opportunities to grow accounts.
Here’s a tip to get the most from a customer survey
Offer an incentive for customers to answer the survey. It doesn’t have to cost you much. You might have a monthly offer of a $50 gift voucher to one person picked at random who returns a survey. That’s not much to pay to increase the amount of responses (and potentially your sales).
So here are my top three customer survey questions
- How are we doing?
- What can we do better?
- What other services would you like us to provide?
This brings an end to our series on upselling you customers
We have covered four strategies:
- Building networks of contacts at your clients
- Proactive selling – contacting your clients to remind them that you can deliver products and services to help them
- Adding ‘upgrade options’ to your quotes
- Using customer surveys to find out what other services your customers would like you to provide
In this article you have also learned how to make sure that your customer service really is as good as you think it is.
Winning new clients is costly. That’s why it’s vital to make the most of your current clients. Now, you are equipped with four important strategies to maximise your turnover and profits from current clients.
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P.S. If you’d like more ideas on how to engage with today’s buyers, download my free e-book “Ten Common Print Selling Errors and What To Do About Them.” You’ll also receive my regular “Views from the print buyer” bulletin, full of ideas on how to sell print effectively.
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