Hi folks, I hope you’ve been having a good week. Things have been a little crazy with my travel, appointments and with our incredible event ranch, Retreat Ranch, but I thrive in these moments. Why? It’s simple, I love serving others. After finally having a moment to myself, I realized this was the perfect inspiration for today’s blog, serving outward by making customer service your priority. Grab a cup of coffee and let’s talk, shall we?
What is Serving Outward?
The key to great customer service is becoming great customer servants. This is more than a semantic change; it’s a change in mindset that requires discipline and execution.
Serving outwards is a leadership solution to improving customer relations. It requires a cultural shift within the business whereby as business leaders we prioritize our customers.
Throughout my executive career, I’ve heard leaders at all levels brag that their company offers great customer service. As I mention in my book Serve Up, Coach Down, nine out of ten times its not true. Similarly, so is the belief that their customer service team is better than others in their industry. Good customer service should be synonymous with the business. If it’s true, there is no need to prove a point by bragging or calling attention to it. It simply is a fact.
If you find yourself having to argue the merits of your company’s customer service, then a change in the office culture and mindset is needed.
The Serving Outward Mindset
Whether we like to admit it or not, our clients are a lifeline for our businesses, not CEOs, Chairmen, Board of Directors, or majority shareholders. If the clients go, there is no company to lead. The serving outward mindset acknowledges this truth and prioritizes customer retention by have your team, including you as their leader, fostering the practice of wanting to be servants to their customers.
A serving outward mindset says, “ABS” (always be serving). Meaning your clients know:
- I want you to feel special.
- I want you to feel appreciated.
- I want you to feel important.
- I want you to feel cared for.
- I get to serve you.
And most of all:
- Doing all this isn’t just my job, it’s my purpose!
How to Implement a Customer-Oriented Business Culture
Challenge yourself and your team to execute serving out by finding simple but effective ways to execute servant activities. Lead with ideas like:
- What would shock our customers (in a good way)?
- What’s one change that we can implement that they’ll most appreciate?
Good client service is an action; it shouldn’t require spending more money from the budget to win over customers with gifts. It’s about making a stronger effort to communicate your willingness to serve them by showing you care with better urgency.
The reality is the customer doesn’t care about what is happening behind the scenes. I don’t care about how my local coffee shop’s business strategy yields my coffee. I just want a warm cup of coffee and ideally served with a smile, the end.
Remember,
Customers judge us on how we serve them. I have found that when I offer to serve unhappy customers, they become less unhappy.
Our only arguement should be how can we compete against ourselves to offer even better customer service. Money goes where the client goes; to keep them coming back, we’ve got to ABS and one-upping our past interactions with them. Our mindset should be:
No matter how good we are at customer service, we can do even better.
We must strive to be better servants, just like professional athletes must always strive to play better, no matter how many awards or championships they’ve won.
Final Thoughts
Happy clients spend money and will want to return if the experience is A+. When we adopt the serving outward mindset, we don’t need to tell them how great we are, we only need to SHOW them. If you’re not willing to go the extra mile for your client, then get out of sales or the service industry (hate to break this to you…but every job we do has some sort of sales/service aspect).
I’m not saying there won’t be off days and difficult clients that test your faith in humanity; that’s part and parcel of the job. I’m saying despite these off days, you’ve got to maintain the discipline of serving outward whether you are tired or frustrated. Tomorrow brings another day, and if you serve outward despite today’s challenges, then you can reap more benefits in the future. Play the long game by committing to serve outwards to your clients.
