Your Customer Service Sucks & How to Fix It

15 February 2015
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“Your customer service sucks!”

When it comes to marketing your business, the very first thing you need to invest in, is creating an atmosphere where great customer service is your number one priority. Without quality service, no amount of external marketing is going to help create a positive and lasting image of your brand. There’s not enough social media presence in the world to overshadow an extreme neglect to put the customer and their experience first. A million tweets, a thousand posts, and a trillion pics on Instagram is no substitute for putting your best foot forward every time you engage a customer.

Why do you think service continues to decline?

I blame the almighty and insanely restricting job announcement. That string of obligatory text that says in order to work here you must have at least three years’ experience, a degree in this or that, and X number of references.

And…if you don’t, THANKS FOR PLAYING.

Don’t get me wrong, having set standards for employment is necessary, but should that be the only factors considered? When you choose to focus on talent, natural talent, you are choosing to invest in the development of your most qualified profit boosters. If you value your time (and I hope that you do) by hiring professionals based on their natural ability to perform a set of dutiful tasks, you will find that the amount of available time you have in day will double…if not triple! This is due to what I like to call the “hands-off effect.” When someone can perform a task well, based solely on their natural talent. This reduces the amount of time you as an owner or manager need to invest in their development. And the time you do invest, will be focused on moving them from good to great, rather than from OK to good.

That, my friend, is time well spent!

When a person is good at what they do, they experience success. Celebrating this success puts people in a great mood. A great mood results in a positive outward attitude towards others. The attitude of your employees can elevate your business to new heights, or it can level it down to all-time lows.

So in order to boost customer service, and begin creating a vibrant image of quality around your business, the action steps you need to implement are simple:

  1. Hire based on natural talent
  2. Boost that talent to amazing heights
  3. Destroy the competition with rock star levels of customer service
  4. Make more money
  5. Be happy
  6. Take a vacation
  7. Repeats steps 1 through 6

Below are two job announcements that were used as examples in the awesome book The Talent Factor: Key Strategies for Recruiting, Rewarding, and Retaining Top Performers, written by Terry Lunn.

You can see how each announcement appeals to the reader who owns the natural talent to be successful in each job. Individuals who have the requested natural talents are stimulated and motivated when they read these statements.

If I were you, I’d mimic the style of these examples to promote your next vacancy. But only if you want to draw in the most talented people.

WARNING: This type of announcement may be ignored by those who feel their résumé speaks for itself.

Click here to view the scanned image below as a large format PDF

Reference: The Talent Factor, Terry Lund. First published in 1992. © Terry Lund

Reference: The Talent Factor, Terry Lund. First published in 1992. © Terry Lund

Featured Image Credit : photo credit: Little Girl and Dog via photopin (license)

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