Three Little Letters to Delight Customers

By Josh Jordan, Senior Contributing Editor to Delight Customers!

AND:

Used to connect two homogeneous (similar) words or phrases; Used at the end of a list to indicate the last item; Used to join sentences or sentence fragments in chronological order; Used to indicate causation; To; used to connect two finite verbs (thanks wikipedia)

AND:

Acknowledge Notify Deliver - a closed loop process for Delighting Customers!

Customers want to know that you are there watching out for them; thinking about them; and meeting expectations. Often times, you have a response in hand based on your knowledge of the customer and project. It's when you don't that you can create and opportunity to delight.

Using AND to do more that just tie words together will instill confidence and manage expectations.

Acknowledge:

When customers send in a request over the phone, email, fax, twitter, facebook, smoke signal, what is your respone? Do you wait until you have an answer to reply? It is of the utmost importance to let your customer know you have received their request and are addressing it.

It's as simple as, "Judy, thanks for email. I just want to let you know that I am going to talk to Tina and find out where things stand. Give me an (appropriate amount of time) and I'll have an update, or answer for you."

Notify:

Tracking down Tina, who also has a full-time job, may not be easy. That's why it is important to notify your customer as you make progress in providing an answer. Don't leave your customer to sit at their desk when they have plenty of things on their own "to-do" list. Consistently notify them that you are working for them.

"Judy, Tina and I are meeting with the team at 2 p.m. and I'll have information for you by 3 p.m."

If the meeting gets postponed, let Judy know!

Deliver:

You've created an expectation, now satisfy it.

"Judy, I met with Tina, Dave and Tom. There are three options we can provide ... How would you like to proceed."

or, create delight and make a recommendation:

"Judy, I met with Tina, Dave and Tom. There are three options we can provide ... Based on your program and needs, we feel option 1 is a good fit. How would you like to proceed?"

AND is a simple process that we know we should follow everyday. Keeping AND in mind, will help you avoid a customer looking for results and provide a consistent experience in customer service.

Josh can be reached at josh.d.jordan@gmail.com