Research shows that making contact with a customer – any contact, even a simple “hello” dramatically increases the likelihood of a sale. Not getting assistance or attention dramatically decreases the likelihood of a sale. So you would expect more businesses to make friendly customer service a top priority. Fortunately for you, the strategic manager, this is not the case. Customers crave for a friendly helpful service, but they seldom get it. Instead they are usually being ignored or taken for granted.
You can immediately increase your sales just by greeting each and every client with a friendly “hello”. Start there, and take it a notch further every so often. For example, you could instruct your employees to make eye contact and smile at customers. In a friendly environment customers feel comfortable enough to hang around longer, ask for help, interact with your staff, and eventually buy more products, more often.
This principle applies to all interactions with your customers. How friendly are your phone operators? Are they going out of their way to help the customer, or are they in a hurry to hang up the phone? Are your email messages friendly and helpful, or are they full of legalese and self-serving content?
The bottom line is this: Provide your customers a friendly and accommodating experience, and they will reward you by becoming loyal customers.
If you decide to use and apply this principal we would love to hear from you. Send us an email and let us know how it’s working for you.