Lessons in Customer Service
Georgia Patrick, president of The Communicators, Inc., opened the Spring ACC meeting with an assessment of customer service, personal happiness, and how to set career and life goals. "You have to be totally, completely geared for success," Patrick said, adding that "timing is everything, and laughter is essential.
Patrick focused on how to achieve customer relationship management (CRM) successfully. CRM is a plan for companies to grow by focusing on valuable customers and retention rates rather than always trying to drum up new business. CRM requires that a company have a good foundation, a blueprint, and a plan. Then the steps include:
- Integrating customer knowledge;
- Focus on data-intensive interactions;
- Give customers independence in their contacts;
- Personalize communications;
- Continuously update information;
- Build dynamic views of the customer;
- Close the loop on inquiries;
- Protect customer privacy.
As an aftermarket example, Patrick spoke about how Dana Corporation has used CRM successfully, and how it has improved their customer service.
As Patrick said, "Every customer of yours is someone else's prospect!" Keeping current customers content needs to be the goal of every successful company. "Only customers are real," Patrick said. "Products and services come and go."
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