Q: Do
you think a small business can really distinguish itself through
superior customer service?
A:
Absolutely, but it can't happen overnight. Good service is
extremely hard to find these days. As a consumer, I'm always on
the lookout for good service and am frustrated by how seldom I see
it. Even when I do see it, more often than not it's the result
of a single person going out of their way to provide the service
and not the policies or practices of the business.
So what does this mean for you, the entrepreneur who is working
like crazy to get your business off the ground? You have a million
things to think about, and this is just one of them. If you're
looking to distinguish your business and offer something that will
be a real competitive advantage, then I suggest you focus on
customer service. Understand, however, that if you choose this
path, it has to be a long-term strategy, and you'll have to be
patient to see the results. That's because anyone can claim to
offer great service, and that makes it hard for customers to
distinguish between the people who really deliver it and those who
just say they do. If you want to make customer service a key part
of your business, then you have to not only make the claim, but
also consistently back it up. If you do this, over time more and
more people will believe you, and they'll spread the word.
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If you can establish a reputation for service, great things will
happen. It will be easier for you to get new customers, get more
business from your existing ones and increase your prices. Many
businesspeople seem to think that price is everything. My
experience has been that people will pay more if you give them
more.
But you can't just raise your prices and say that you have
more value. You have to prove it. When my brother-in-law and I
started Tucker
Golf, we wanted our service to be second to none. At our first
trade show, people would ask about our company, and at some point
I'd mention that our goal was to provide better service than
any other golf vacation company. Their response was almost always,
"Oh, so you charge a lot more!" That wasn't what I
meant at all, and we really didn't charge much more. The point
is that no one believed us because we hadn't been around long
enough to prove our claim. It isn't enough just to say it--you
have to do it! And not just for a few weeks--you have to do it day
in and day out for years.
Now, five years later, we have customers who call and say,
"Set me up with something similar to last year, and here is my
credit card number--just charge it with however much it
costs." It has taken Tucker a long, long time to earn that
kind of trust. We had to provide a lot of great service along the
way for people to hear about us, experience us and recommend us to
other people.
OK, maybe I've persuaded you that this could work. But how
do you get from here to there? Well, I admit it is a bit of a
chicken and an egg problem. When Tucker first got started, we had
many competitors who regularly sent thousands of golfers on
vacations, while we had never sent anyone. How do you make a name
for yourself against that kind of competition? You work hard, be
persistent and stay alive until enough people experience your
service to come back (and bring other people with them). At Tucker,
we started out slowly, but eventually the first person called and
booked their vacation, and then a little later another one, and
then another and so on.
It's one thing to talk about great service, but quite
another to provide it, day after day, for the months and years that
it takes to make a difference. But there's nothing magic about
it--just hard work and persistence. You can provide it, I can
provide it and our competitors can provide it. But most of them
don't. And that opens a big door for us, if we're willing
to do what it takes to step through.
Keith Lowe is an experienced entrepreneur who is a founder
and investor in companies in several industries. Lowe also mentors
new entrepreneurs; serves as past chairman of the board for
Biztech, a
nonprofit high-tech business incubator; and is a co-founder and
officer for the Alabama Information Technology Association.
The opinions expressed in this column are those
of the author, not of Entrepreneur.com. All answers are intended to
be general in nature, without regard to specific geographical areas
or circumstances, and should only be relied upon after consulting
an appropriate expert, such as an attorney or
accountant.