Customer service is what your business delivers to achieve customer satisfaction. Some businesses deliver physical products and may not see themselves as being a service business. However, their customers still measure the business on the service that they experience both pre-sale and after-sale. So customer service is an increasingly important part of a business' activities.

Customer satisfaction

The goal of customer service is customer satisfaction. Customer satisfaction is what the customer feels subjectively and sometimes irrationally. There is all the difference in the world between a customer being 'satisfied' and being 'not dissatisfied'.

Marketing has moved from 'transactional marketing' to 'relationship marketing'

• Transactional marketing focused on attracting new customers and simply getting the sale.
• Relationship marketing focuses on getting customers and keeping them in the longer term using a combination of marketing, quality and customer service.

Excellence in customer service, using the idea of relationship marketing, can help you to retain customers.

• They are less likely to go to your competitors in the increasingly competitive markets where customers have more choice than ever.
• As satisfied customers, they will recommend you to others, resulting in an increase in new business. It is said that it costs up to 10 times as much to win a new customer than to keep an existing one.
• They are less likely to tell other people of bad experiences. Customers experiencing poor service are likely to tell up to 20 people about their experience, which is not a good advertisement for your business. This may deter others from even trying you out, and so you will not get the chance to impress them, even with the best or most innovative products and services.
• By focusing your attention on the customers that have the highest potential lifetime value, you can improve profitability.
• Your staff will have a 'feel good' factor because of the environment and atmosphere that leads to happy customers. This can help to attract further new customers over time.

Satisfying the Customer

Marketing is about identifying, anticipating and satisfying customer needs. It applies to customer service delivery as well as to the products and services you offer. To introduce a customer service programme, you need to take four main steps:

• Identify which of your external customers are the most valuable.
• Identify your internal and external customers.
• Find out what level of service customers want.
• Develop customer service standards and a programme to provide customer satisfaction and help build loyalty.