Great customer service is something everyone desires…yet rarely can it be consistently achieved.  The folks over at getsatisfaction produced an interesting infographic on the 10 commandments of Good Customer Service.  I wonder why they didn’t title it Great Customer Service?  Isn’t good customer service the expected norm? At any rate a good inforgraphic but falls short on substance.

At the top of the list they have “commit to quality service”.  What is quality service?  How do you define this?  And can you execute day in day out in a systematic fashion without fail?  Can your system be deployed across your entire team?  The human factor is the true litmus test…if each and every member within your company can consistently deliver your quality service system…you’ve made it.  When I think great service for some reason Starbucks comes to mind.  I don’t know why, since I’m not a raving Starbucks fan but every time I go (3-4 times a month) the experience regardless of location is remarkably the same.

Know your products is a no-brainer…it can be argued that it should be top of the list.  It’s never been so easy to get information…most of your customers will know more about your product than you do.  The step beyond, is knowing your products relative to your competition and positioning its strengths according to customer wants and needs is what will get the sale.

Know your customer.  Lets face it, you cannot be all things to all people.  The name of the game is to focus on who your heavy user is…think 80/20.  That’s is roughly 80% of your revenues will come from 20% of your customer base…focus on getting more of these types.

Points 4 thru 7 are self explanatory.

Point 8 assume that your customers tell the truth…it’s amazing how so many companies take the opposite stance.  I tend to think that if the person is actually taking the time to tell you about a problem they have with your company…they are giving you an opportunity to keep them as a customer.  Sure there are scammers out there but do you really want to waste your energy on them?  They likely affect less than 1% of of your overall sales.

Point 9 focus on making customers not sales.  If you want your advertising and marketing budget to shrink this point is for you.  Make your customers do the marketing and advertising for you.  Make stark raving fans out of them and watch your expenditures shrink.

Point 10 make it easy to buy.  When cash is on the table make it dead simple for your customers to give it to you.  A great post on this can be found at Jeffery Gitomer’s post titled Do you take YES for an answer?

Two Quik Tipz to achieving Great Customer Service:

1. Shop your competition…what are they doing well and what are they not.  And do better than them….period.
2. Shop other businesses in other industries…you don’t live in a vacuum.  Try to adopt ideas from other leaders.  Check out companies like: Amazon or Zappos….there’s a reason why Amazon is at the top of the infographic list below.

(Click on Image to enlarge)

If you are a B2B business, social media can work.  Just like B2C, your clients want to make sure that they are making the correct decision when buying your product or service.  Social proof is one way to increase buyer confidence.  There are many different ways you can use Social Media to support your B2B business.  The important thing to consider is how to add VALUE to your client’s/prospect’s business.  Having said this, there are 3 main take-a-ways from this infographic:

1. Social Media tools are FREE to use but there is a cost or investment to them.  You need to invest time and energy into making them successful tactics to your marketing strategy,

2. One of the biggest advantages of Social Media is that it’s measurable.  The infographic shows that only 50% of the businesses surveyed actually measured it’s ROI.  If you can’t measure or won’t measure it why do it?  Running a business is about ROI on time, money, and resources,

3. Strategy before execution.  Before you undertake any social media campaign figure out what the end goal of social media is for your business.

The infographic you see below was posted at Socialnomics.