Customers are not a dime a dozen…they come with a variety of different sizes, shapes and colors. Different characteristics, desires, needs and expectations. A strong customer service strategy will identify all of these customer attributes in an organized fashion so you can make informed decisions about your clients and the services you want to offer. It is important to know everything that you can about your customers to ensure you are offering the most value. From basic information, name, address, title and area of responsibility to wants, needs and pressures and everything in between, it is important to not only understand your customer but to be able to see your services from their point of view, to enhance communication, articulate a value proposition and to develop the foundation for trust. You need to be honest with your assessment on how well you know your customers and to begin to develop your customer service strategy to move each customers to the highest level – loyalty.
Although all companies have a distinct way to classify their customers, I like Ken Welsh’s definition of customers in his ebook titled “Happy about Customer Service”. Ken starts off by defining his customer group as the Family Tree broken down into five groups that reflect the basic types of human relationships that everyone is familiar with:
Strangers
A stranger is a person we don’t know and doesn’t know about us. They may not know our product or services exist or have little or no interest in us or our products until they decide they need what we provide. A strangers needs and desires may not initially relate to us, however, circumstances often creates a need which propels a stranger to discover them.
Acquaintances
An acquaintance is someone we know slightly and may have little more than a passing interest in what we do. They typically don’t know what we do could help them. They may be aware of our services but have no reason to show loyalty because they have never used them. They will most likely “shop around” and often desire the best value for their money and each acquaintance’s concept of value will be unique.
Friends
A friend is a person we know well and have used our services before and often are inclined to find out more and use us again. They already trust us and the work is mutually enjoyable, beneficial and profitable. A win-win relationship. Friends desire love, they are with you by choice and they can choose to stay or leave. This is a relationship that will need to be maintained. They do not want to look elsewhere because they are comfortable but if we cannot keep the relationship mutually beneficial, will look elsewhere.
Family
A family are people who are related to one another and have deposited so much good will into the relationship that even if a mistake is made, they’ll forgive us. Family knows us and what to expect from us; however they still love to be surprised when we do something unexpected. They will stand by us even if our services are not the lowest price, because they see past the dollar value to the value of the ongoing relationship.
Blindly Proud Grandparents
A blindly proud grandparent is a customer for whom we can do no wrong. They are unconditionally loyal and sing our praises so strongly, so adamantly, so consistently, that they do our marketing for us. They are our greatest fans and always will be.
How many of your customers fall into each of these groups? Do you have many blindly proud grandparents or is your client list filled with strangers? If you are unable to identify what category your customer falls in, you will need to work on developing a system that works specific to your business. Once your customers move to family and blindly proud grandparent, you are well on your way to moving your customer to a place of loyalty and trust.
After you gather all of your client data and organize it into a nice database, begin to qualify your customers into specific categories. Whether you use Ken Welsh’s groups above, define your own or simply use A, B or C, you will need to understand what each category means and what are the steps and challenges to get from one level to the next. Ken's books moves you thru this process and helps you identify the challenges involved and offers a roadmap for improving your customer service. This assessment will help you to create a client specific strategy personalized to their wants / needs and provide you with the opportunity to interact with your customer and ask them what you can do to improve your relationship.
Knowing your customer is the first step to Great Customer Service!
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