As of November this year, the Twilight series by Stephenie Meyer has sold over 85 million copies worldwide and New Moon, the latest film in the cinematic adaptations of the saga, made $142.8 million in its opening weekend alone. No one can deny that it is a cultural phenomenon that is making its sweep across the world.

For those of you who have no idea what this is all about, New Moon is the continuing romantic tale of Edward (a vampire) and Bella (a tasty human). Edward leaves Bella and she finds comfort in her friend Jacob (Edward’s rival) who inevitably ends up protecting her from other vengeful vampires left from the previous book Twilight. If seen from a customer service point of view, the storyline follows the rule:

“If you aren’t taking care of your customers, your competition will.”
(Quoted from Albert E. Schindler)

Never underestimate the power of the competition. If you allow your customer service to fall short of your customers’ high expectations, they will go to whomever has what they need and the service they want. So how do you keep your standards up to customers’ expectations?

Rule number one: Listen to your customers.
How can you meet your customers’ expectations unless you know what those expectations are? One way of obtaining such information is through comment boards on the company website. So much business is conducted online these days that having a comment board/feedback section online would be an easy way of hearing responses—good and bad—from customers. And the good feedback would be excellent free advertising.

Rule number two: Make contacting you simple.
When customers come across an issue with a certain product, they often get frustrated by the multiple attempts to fix the issue themselves before contacting the company. So by the time they reach that point of needing to reach customer service, they are ready for a fix right then. They do not want to wait on the phone for an hour listening to off-key, static ridden, elevator music.

To eliminate the wait on the phone, have a self-service center online that allows customers to send in an issue or incident. It will go directly to the agent it needs to go to and the customer will not have to wait on hold as their call gets shifted from person to person for all eternity. Also, by having a self-service center with a knowledge base available, they will have access to information concerning their problem and past solutions which could help them.

Rule number three: Patience is a virtue.
Customers come in all shapes and sizes. But when they contact customer service they are in the Shape of Impatience - Size: Frustrated. They really aren’t in the mood to be forgiving. Your agents do not deserve to be yelled at but remember that the customer has probably tried a hundred things to fix the problem and failed a hundred times. And wasted who knows how many hours trying to correct the issue.

So....when you get that nasty e-mail or receive that angry phone call, keep calm and be patient. Think: Zen. Let the customer vent their frustration and then respond with tranquil understanding and concern which usually cools heated emotions.

With these three rules of customer service, you can keep your standards up to customer expectations, maintain your current customers, and possibly steal a few from the competition. Because if they won’t care for their customers, you will.