As economists will tell you, whenever customers are presented with plenty of choice, there is fierce competition. Winning new business is difficult but keeping it can be equally so. If there is one thing that this teaches you it’s that to survive you have to differentiate what your business does – add elements to your product and service that your customers value.

With so many choices, customers will gravitate to the best products and services they can find and it's your job to provide them before your competitors do. Keeping customers happy depends on a variety of circumstances: luckily, most of them are within your control.

Incorporate customer service into business culture

The most successful businesses in the industry have one thing in common: the knowledge that their business is based on keeping customers enthusiastic.

As an owner or manager of a small business there are many things you may be responsible for. You are a sales manager, an accountant, a despatch clerk, and you may even get your hands dirty on the factory floor occasionally. The most important job you have, however, is that of customer service manager.

It's easy to get so caught up in the things you do every day, the products you make and managing what needs to be done, that you forget about the people who buy them. If your business is too small for a customer service department, then every employee in your organisation, from the owner to the part time student in the office, needs to take an active role in solving customer problems.

To be customer successful, you and your business need to be genuinely committed to providing more customer service excellence than anyone else in the garment decoration industry. This commitment must be so powerful that every one of your customers can sense it at every point they interact with your business. Here are five things that you can do starting today:

Firstly, get everyone focused on the customer. Make it a goal of every person within your organisation to be customer focused, even those who are out of direct contact with customers. Everyone within your business should treat everyone else as a customer, treating colleagues and customers as they themselves would expect to be treated.

The second step is to communicate the benefits of good customer service to your staff. Be certain that your passion for customer service runs throughout your company. Make sure employees see how good service relates to your profits and to their future with the business.

Thirdly, put your customer service policy in writing. These principles should come from you, the business owner, and every employee should know what the rules are and be ready to live up to them. This statement doesn't have to be cheesy or elaborate, just a simple statement that reflects how important customers are to the business.

Identify what your customers perceive to be excellent customer service and communicate that to the rest of your business. Use posters and flyers anywhere you can around your premises as a reminder to you and your staff of what customers expect from you. Include customer service in your staff appraisals and coach your people to improve what they do.

Practising excellent customer service should be as routine as paying your bills or ordering office supplies, and it doesn’t have to be elaborate to make an impression. Often it’s the small things that customers remember: a phone call returned on time, an email or card to mark a special occasion, a thank you note or a gift.

The fourth thing to work on is putting the customer first. Flexibility is something that can maintain and build relationships. Don't be afraid to make exceptions and bend your policies from time to time to accommodate special requests or pacify dissatisfied customers. Put your customers' needs ahead of everything else. They will remember you for it.

Finally, share information with customer facing staff. Talk to employees regularly about improving service. When was the last time you had a meeting just talking about making customer service improvements? Ask for ideas to improve things for the customer – they, after all, are the ones at the sharp end who are dealing with customers most often, talking to them every single day.

Prioritise customers’ needs

Speedy responses throughout your business mean the difference between winning and losing orders. One of the best things you can ensure happens in your print or embroidery business is that people prioritise what they do on a daily basis around the customer; they respond quickly to customer driven enquiries; and that you enable and encourage your people to give an immediate customer response.

Make sure that people work with pace and immediacy with customer issues. Keep your customers up to date with the status of their orders and if a customer’s order is held up, let them know as soon as possible.

If you promise to have a job done by a certain date and there are glitches, tell your customer right away and let them know when you expect the issue will be resolved. Always present them with a solution to a problem and not just the problem. Let them know you are working hard on their behalf.

“Aim to deliver what you promise, whilst making sure what you promise your competition can’t deliver.”

Simple things, like how your business handles incoming customer calls can make a big difference to how customers perceive your organisation.

When dealing with customers over the telephone, try not to put them on hold for longer than a minute. Don’t assume they have the time to hang around on the phone waiting for you to get back to them. Anyone who listens to ‘on hold’ music or worse, complete silence, for longer than a minute starts to get a little tetchy.

If the person taking the call expects to be tied up getting an answer for longer than a minute, then take a message and respond as soon as possible.

More importantly, agree with the customer when the return call will be made, call back at the agreed time and leave a message if they are unavailable.

Prioritising both your activities and those of your staff around customer needs is a crucial element to business winning customer service.

Be pro-active

The third secret is to be pro-active around improving customer service. One of the advantages of being a small- or medium-sized business is that it’s usually easier to respond quickly and personally to customer inquiries. Always look to make the most of that advantage you have over your larger competitors.

From time to time, put yourself in your customers’ shoes. Ask yourself how you would like your enquiry handled, how you would like to be treated, and then act accordingly. Remember to be proactive towards your customers as well as reactive to their concerns and questions.

Experience what your customers experience. Listen to how the phone is answered when you call into your office, how customer calls are dealt with, how customers are spoken to and their enquiries handled.

Consider instigating a mystery call from time to time to assess the performance of your business in handling enquiries from customers.

When you have a fair idea of what your business looks like to a customer from the outside looking in, carry out the same mystery shop exercise on your closest competitor, find out what they are like and how you compare.

Soak up the feedback, listen and learn from your team, your customers, and your experience and correct the areas of poor service that you find. The opinions of your customers truly count and seeking customer feedback needs to be an integral part of your business culture.

Be appreciative

The fourth secret is to let your customers know that you appreciate their business. Generating repeat business and keeping customers happy go hand in hand. Satisfied customers will come back to you repeatedly for the goods and services you provide.

A happy customer will speak highly of you to others. This is exactly what you want, especially when the people they are talking to are higher up the decision making chain in the company they work for.

In a business-to-business selling situation, your buyer wants to show others within their organisation (including the boss) that they have made the right choice of supplier and that you are doing a good job for their business. This reflects positively on their personal performance and in some cases in the pocket if they are rewarded with company performance bonuses.

So be sure to thank customers for their business. Invite them to open days and business functions. Let them know how you feel about having them as a customer, what they do for your business and remind them how you benefit theirs.

Make each and every customer you deal with feel like they are your number one account, even though they might not be the highest spending.

If customers regularly visit your place of business, make them feel welcome from the very moment they walk through the door to the time they leave your car park.

Make your customers look good

The final secret is that the best performing businesses in the industry know that making their customers look good wins business.Work hard on your business systems to ensure that they are working on behalf of the customer to get product there on time.

Sometimes we forget that buyers have customers too. These might be friends, acquaintances, actual customers or people they report to or service within their own organisations. If you make your buyers look good with their customers and colleagues, they will surely remember you for it.

Successful businesses in the industry work hard on their customer relationships, making them open and honest. They do what they say they are going to do and work hard to maintain trust between them and their customers.

If you have a strong relationship with your customers they will be more inclined to defend you internally when things go occasionally wrong. Because they have invested their time, energy and trust and because they know you can generally be relied upon to deliver on your promises.

So, if you make every effort not just to deliver on time but by your actions make your customers look good, they will remember you for it. Find out which are your customers ‘hot buttons’. By that I mean what things they need from you that will make them look good within their organisation. Focus on providing these things and it will be you they call next rather than your competition.

My other 15 secrets in the series are available free from my website.

Seagrave provides personal and business performance coaching to professionals within the industry Seagrave is also the author of Print & Packaging Success – a free business-coaching newsletter that helps owners and managers grow turnover and profits by ‘Competition-Proofing' everything they do.

To find out more and get a free five-part coaching session on Business Winning Customer Service, visit www.print-packaging-success.co.uk or email ray@print-packaging-success.co.uk

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