How do you go from good to excellent customer serv...

Hi everyone!

I was just wondering on what we can do to totally exceed a customers expectations and as business owners I was wondering what have you experienced or what would you expect from a storage company to make you go WOW?

Cheers

Hi Sarah,

That's a wide open question and difficult to dig into without knowing the specifics of your business. I keep count of all the customer service wows and errors that we've come across and last count hit 263 unique areas that customers can judge you on, ranging from the simplistic to the ridiculous. They do tend to fall into 3 categories - interaction, communication, and the ability to meet the requirements and expectations.

The vast majority of customer service problems arise from communication problems. The unresponded-to email, the failure to return a phone call, and kept in limbo are the basic things that tend to drive your customer demented. Getting the simple things right is often enough to make even the most cynical customer go wow.

To take it up a level and coin an old phrase, your customer may know what they want but not what they need , and so it's your job to learn as much as you can about them (without being invasive) so you can best assist them. The finest bit of customer service advice i ever heard was in every customer interaction ensure that at the end of it the customer is closer to satisfying their needs than they were at the beginning. 

The best way of finding out your customers expectations is to ask them.  What have we done well? What could we do better? Ask both those who buy from you and those that choose not to, both are equally important to hear from. 

And a tip of my own from dealing with the storage industry - providers tend to talk a lot in square footage. Nobody on the customer side really knows in their head what that measurement is. They can't picture it and so it just confuses people. 

On a complete aside - I used to be based in an office on West Bar, so in my opinion, your location is spot on.

Hope that is some help...

I agree with Danny its about communication, communication,communication - it sounds so simple but responding to complaints / enquiries in a timely informative manner is so important.  Be honest and full of integrity - if theres a problem - appologise and fix it.  Don't bury your head in the sand.  Manange peoples expectations so they are not dissapointed.

I've never used storage but are there extra services you could offer to your competition - e.g Providing protective wrapping  or offering Instant access to check your property?  Understand what concerns your customer / what problems your customer needs you to solve and overcome / fix them and then tell everyone about it.

We have had some really good feedback from a client recently. We managed to deliver their web work a few days before their deadline. We kept the client in the loop at every stage and even through in some additional work for free (this is the third time they have used our services). We are now experimenting with something called Trello (http://trello.com). We are setting up client boards and writing every stage of the process down. This allows a client to see what stage their project is at and add comments.

We have a bigger project management software installed on our server but we find that Trello is a lot easier to use for our clients.

Hope that helps.

Tom

Cheers guys these are all helpful points. I have just took over Armadillo in West Bar and although I am now new to the retail industry, I am new to storage so I thought I would throw the question out there.

Something we have started using for internal development projects and works really well - can see this being very good for clients as well 

One method I believe has taken our customer service up a level this year for our PAYG service is our speed of reply - clients appreciate a fast response and if possible solution to the issue - this has been achieved through our own software flagging up a customer service issue virtually real-time - its then fastest to reply and deal with the query. 

Video of Raving Fans author Ken Blanchard, I've not read it but it looks good - > http://bvo.com/programmes/ken-blanchard-on-how-to-create-raving-fans

This is a really good video!

I have used self-storage places - mainly late at night after a 2 hour drive.

At that time, I was probably the only user, besides the security, and it was spooky.

Perhaps some light tannoyed music, better lighting and something to muffle the echoey-ness of of metal walkways.

Also - why not have an 'open day' - invite people to see what you have on offer.

Why not also have a 'coffee lounge' ? If you've moved a lot of stuff from car-storage or vice versa its useful to know one can get a drink. (don't overprice it).

Speed.  

Speed of response.  People who have a reputation for doing things fast. - That's what I think makes excellent customer service.  (the opposite is true.)

Hi Sarah

From my point of view there is a small step between standard and excellent customer service and that step is often something unexpected and not necessarily expensive. I remember a local carpet cleaning company that left little plastic covers for our feet when the cleaning was complete to help keep everything clean while the carpets dried completely. A small thing but something I have told many people about.

Gareth, - what an awesome example - i guess it comes back to really understanding your comapnys customers there needs & frustrations, and making sure you forfill or resolve them.  In this example it demonstrates a really thoughtful, personal touch - resolving an issue that I personally wouldnt even have though about in advance!

One line normally comes to mind: "No one tries harder for customers".

Put yourself in the customers shoes: Think about yourself and what you would expect from a storage company. Then think of things which you think might be useful. Having never used a self storage service I wouldn't know exactly.

However if you use deliveries/pick-ups customers might find it useful to know what time they need to be in for you to turn up (rather than having to be in all day). This is especially true of people who are moving house and need to talk to estate agents and solictors around you visiting.

It might be useful if their items were in a useful location (say at the front of the store) for them to pick up when they arrive.

Most important of all, the little things count! The more you can say "yes" and "we can sort that for you", the more impressed a customer will be. The more you hide behind company policy, the less impressed a customer will be.

I'm going to stand by the speed thing.  Actually last week I needed prices for storage so phoned a bunch of companies. 

So, I make the call, I want to be asked questions so I can be helped correctly - and then I want the cost - and I want to be asked to go ahead!

NOT , a few sloppy questions and asked for my phone number , never to be called back.

This happens across the board - but I think storage has a particular urgency, people who want storage have a problem, so always offer solution FAST!

:)

Best thing is read Zappos's MD's book -  Delivering Happiness, it will blow your socks off (great read too)