You can have the perfect mix of the 4 P’s, Product, Price, Promotion, and Place, but you can’t expect your marketing to work if you’re missing a C, Customer Service!
The last thing a customer is going to remember is how they felt when they left your business, not the other 4 P’s. Here are 4 things to consider when it comes to providing better customer service.
- Show your marketing campaign to everyone on the front line. They’re often the ones that have day to day interactions with customers and if someone stops in mentioning something they saw or heard in an ad and the salesperson has no idea what they’re talking about, it will leave a negative impression on the customer. The same can be said for a coupon or print ad. Provide a copy at the front register for all staff to be aware of. It may seem simple, but it’s quite common that the staff is left behind in the marketing plans.
- Consider changing your hours to better serve potential customers. We all like working business hours, but if you’re a retail or service driven business, you have to be open when your customers aren’t at work too. Even if it’s just offering extended hours one day a week or by appointment. You could turn those special hours into a marketing campaign of its own!
- Invest in your staff by having an internal marketing budget. Happy employees make happier workers. An internal marketing budget could be used for staff teambuilding or for external training that an employee is interested in attending, or for a networking group, etc.
- Overdeliver to your existing customers. Companies spend so much time trying to grow by focusing on attracting new customers that they often forget the value of their existing customers.
