The Fourth of July is always an entertaining holiday: hamburgers and hotdogs on the grill, homemade ice cream, cookies and cake in abundance, water balloon fights, and the all time classic—fireworks.
(Maybe it’s just the pyromaniac coming out in me, but I love a good fireworks show. The rumbling feel of the resonance when a mortar shoots into the air, the mystical sight of a thousand multi-colored fireflies fading as they slowly fall to earth…it all adds into the wonder and amusement which keeps us all so fixated on a bunch of exploding black powder.)
Marketing is an awful lot like a fireworks show. We throw up advertisements designed to not only to entice, but to also entertain an audience to ensure better memorability—which is exactly why many people watch the Superbowl. It’s not the football they’re really excited to see, it’s the commercials. We put on grand displays to get customers to even take a glance inside our stores or at our websites. But how much do we spend in order to keep the customer interested?
We need great marketing strategies to get consumers in the door but great marketing strategies aren’t going to keep them there. We have to put out top of the line products that are unique, user-friendly, and dependable. Without such merchandise, we might as well close our doors and say, “Thank you for your kind attention. It’s been fun.â€
Alongside great marketing and the best widget the world has ever seen, it is essential that you have the proper back up and support—aka customer service. Maintaining a phenomenal customer service department requires a great deal of patience and flexibility. When a customer starts to yell at an associate or the nasty-grams begin to appear in your inbox, you have to remain calm and not take it personally. The customer is just venting.
Let them vent and once they have calmed themselves a bit, diplomatically discuss how to resolve the issue and give a rough timeline of how the issue will be fixed. Of course, that is all easier said than done, especially when you’ve gotten to work late, spilled coffee on your brand-new shirt while driving your wife’s new car without telling her you were taking it, and all your computers are down at work.
The flexibility side of customer service is somewhat easier to do. Have a format of communication that allows for every communication preference held by your diverse customer base—meaning: have e-mail, fax, phone, online self-service center, online chat, and above all face-to-face availability.
But this is only the beginning. Check out PhaseWare’s software and we’ll show you what amazing things you can do with customer service.
When all is said and done, just make sure you are more than just a big marketing explosion of pretty colors. Make sure you have the substance to back up your claims.