Sales & Systems Saturday: Serving Beyond the Sale

 

The biggest mistake most people make when selling products is that their service ends when the check clears the bank or the product is delivered. They don't follow up with their buyer to see how things went. They don't ask if they need anything else or if there is anything they can improve.

And, because of this, they lose out on bigger sales that could have been made with a little follow-up.

Service Makes a Difference

In 2015, I was working for a custom card printing company. They had corporations that would literally spend thousands on orders for cards that they were going to send out to their customers.

When I first started working at the company, it was a little slow in the mornings. Things would heat up, though, by the end of the day. I spent each morning going through my accounts, checking to see which had shipped and which had delivered.

When customer orders were delivered, I would send them a brief email asking them how the product turned out. Was it to their satisfaction? Was there anything else that I could do for them?

These simple, brief emails turned orders from being $1-$2,000 orders into $4-$5,000 orders in about half of the cases. The customers were impressed with the exceptional service. Many of them told me no one had ever followed up on an order with them. They'd just assumed things were okay because no one had called to complain.

The truth is that most customers won't call to complain. They just won't place more orders with you. They'll disappear and you'll never hear from them again.

Show You Care: Follow Up for Feedback

When you reach out to a customer to find out how their order went or if there is anything they need, you are showing them that you care about their success. You want them to get everything they were expecting to receive and then some.

It shows that you are grateful for the trust that they placed in you with their order, and that you can be depended upon to take ownership of any problems that they might have experienced. This is how you begin to grow the relationship you've developed with them and to cement their willingness to do business with you on an ongoing basis.

In most cases, follow-up is going to be positive. However, when negative feedback follows, avoid getting defensive. Instead, listen for what you could do to improve for the next time and what it is they need from you in order to be happy the first time every time. If you notice a consistent pattern of problems for customers, work on putting together a strategy to prevent the problem from happening.

Sometimes, great customer service begins with setting proper expectations and educating consumers about what to expect,  how to get the best results with what you're giving them, and letting them know about how things work behind the scenes.

Service Is the First Word for Success

If you make service your priority, your business will never lack for people once you get it going. Great customer service will do the selling for you because it will lead people to spread the word on your behalf. Those who sacrifice service to save a dollar are sacrificing their future.