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Customer Satisfaction is One Key to Success

Written by: Colleen Stanley

Article Overview: Sales strategies can ensure customer satisfaction in the long run. This article includes several easy to implement ideas that will strengthen the bond with your customers or clients and ensure you have continued success in your sales efforts.

Customer Satisfaction is One Key to Success

Most business people would agree that no business can exist without customers. In any business, whether it be real estate or website design, it is very important to work closely with your clients to make sure what you have provided or designed for them is what they wanted. To ensure successful sales and customer satisfaction, your clients need to feel both valued and wanted.

Some suggestions that work:

· Face-to-face interaction whenever possible. Some salespeople rely on the telephone and email and avoid actual human contact altogether. While phone calls and emails are quick, it is important to meet your clients face-to-face during the course of any sales project so a personalized element exists. Rapport is more quickly and smoothly created when you meet your clients in person.

· Just be nice and approachable. Seem obvious? Probably, but in the rat race of the business world, common courtesies and manners are sometimes forgotten. Make your clients feel as though you like him/her. Act like you care about your customer. Let them know you're here to help them. Regardless of how frustrating your interaction with a client may be, you must never let on how annoyed you are. Respond to your client's wishes as best you can and be courteous and polite while doing so.

· Answer voicemails and emails promptly. We all know how annoying it can be to leave a message for someone and wait for a return call for days on end. As a sales person, you may not be able to get back to everyone in the space of a few hours, but at least call/email and let the client know you received their message and will get back to them as soon as possible. Even if you don't have an answer for them or you cannot solve the problem they have immediately, let them know you're aware of it and working on it.

· Have a customer service policy in place. When you first start out, you may be so anxious to actually have customers that you won't put in the effort to have a customer service policy, but you need one. If a customer has a problem, what should they do about it? If the first option in your policy doesn't work, then what happens? If your customer is not satisfied, what does she do? Passing a client from person to person to deal with a problem is the worst thing you can do. Make sure you and your clients both know what to do at each stage of their inquiry.

· Be proactive by anticipating your client’s needs. Understanding your client to this level takes a lot of skill and hard work and will do wonders for your working relationship. If you anticipate your client's needs, go out of your way to help them out with these needs. They will be impressed and so will your boss!

· Keep your word. There is nothing worse than a salesperson who can't be trusted. When you promise something, deliver it. If you say something will be done on a certain date or that a product will be delivered by a certain date, every day that it's late damages your reputation. No salesperson wants a reputation of not delivering, and bad news travels fast!

Some people believe successful selling is an art; others think it is a science. Regardless of what side you take (art vs science), customer satisfaction is absolutely imperative in any business. Keep in mind that without the customer, there is no business.

Related Articles
  The Secrets to Creating Customer Satisfaction
  The Importance of Customer Satisfaction
  The Customer Service Satisfaction
  The Customer Satisfaction Trap
  Do you feel empowered and satisfied at work?

Article Tags: business world, courtesies, customer satisfaction, customer service policy, element, email, human contact, interaction, manners, phone calls, rat race, real estate, sales person, salespeople, successful sales, voicemails, work face
Referred by: http://www.page1solutions.com



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Re: Two Useful Books To Help You Focus On The CLIENT - Hi David, To add to your thread, I'd like to recommend Jonathan Tisch's "Chocolates On The Pillow Aren't Enough: Reinventing The Customer Experience". Tisch's book includes content on "Welcoming Customers", "The New Art of Customization", "The Challenges of Customer Diversity" and "Offering Something Extra to Your Customers" to name a few.
Re: Some attractive terms in advertisement - [quote="lane_hug":sqdmyojl]Some terms can make the advertisement look more attractive, like unlimited, free, life time guarantee, and more. These should be definitely incorporated to ensure fast sales.[/quote:sqdmyojl] You've got to be careful with such terms, though. Take as an example the poor Korean dry cleaners who had the words "Satisfaction guaranteed" on their storefront window. They lost (supposedly) a pair of slacks from some loony judge, who proceeded to sue them for MILLIONS of dollars (over a $100 pair of slacks) because they did not provide him with satisfaction. [If the sign had said "Satisfaction guaranteed or your money back" perhaps none of it would have happened...] These days more and more people are apt to sue at the drop of a hat, and if you promise them something even though common sense says you wouldn't have meant what you said (for example Pepsi got in trouble because their commercial for Pepsi points, at the time the movie True Lies came out, featured a Harrier jet as in the movie. A few looney businessmen bought up all the points the could to get that jet, although they were told it had just been dramatic license, and ended up suing Pepsi for misleading advertising. The suit was dismissed, but the fact that the guy was able to find lawyers who'd even take the case on is scary. To cut a long story short, be careful what terms you use, and think to yourself what you'd have to do if people took them literally.
Re: THE SECRET TO SUCCESS IS ALL IN YOUR HEAD...RIGHT NOW!!! - Success = Thinking (Head) + Heart (Feeling / Interest) + Hand (doing/ action). Success - H3 Robert
Re: Paypal process $315 million in payments per day. - I agree with you David, their Customer relations suck. This mean other payment systems like 2CO and WORLDPAY should work on their customers relations to take more slice of the market.
Re: Welcome to Entrepreneur University! - Hi Evan and GT, Can you clarify? If you join the "Preferred Customer" you are not entitled to commission? Why? This is the the $79.95/month account, I don't understand why you are not getting commission from it?


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