In a survey done in the UK some years ago they asked the question "Why do you go back to a business after you have done business with them in the past?" Of the thousands of people surveyed "Friendly Service" was the most common answer. For the next few sessions we will be discussing what constitutes "Friendly Service" and how to maximise this opportunity.

Having satisfied customers is just not enough. Everybody works towards that. The target has moved over the last few years and we must aim for "Raving Fans" if we are truly going to differentiate ourselves from our competitors.

To start with we need to work on three areas where improved customer service will make a difference. Our Products and Service - are they customer friendly, are the instructions easy to work out? Our Systems - have they been developed with the customer in mind? Our People - you cannot expect your people to care about the customers unless you demonstrate you care about your people. 

How do you make customers feel welcome? The target here is to make sure your customers are visiting a close personal friend when they come into your business. Do you always walk towards them and smile? Do you always know their name and used it?

A complaint is an opportunity to retain a customer for life. The trick with complaints is the time it takes to fix them. If you fix problems in a few days ... well so what? Your competitors are doing the same. If you can fix a problem instantly, however, the customer is likely to return to your business confident that, if there is a problem, it will be sorted instantly.

Now we come to that burning issue of price in the sale. Sales people the world over have this idea that if we lower the price we will sell more. This is just not the case and in this session we will start to look at where price fits into the sales equation. As a customer do you only buy the cheapest? Of course not! So why is it that when we put our sales hat back on we think our customers only care about price? 

Price is important of course, but there are other things that are driving the customer to buy from you that are far more important than price. Quality is always more important than price. If in quality you include whether the product works or not this must be the most important issue. It doesn't matter how cheap it is if it doesn't work then it is a waste of money. The only thing customers care about is what they are getting for their money and we call this "Value".

Over the last few weeks we have covered some very important sales issues. We started the section with a look at what it takes to generate "Raving Fans" from ordinary customers and then followed that the challenging issue of price in the sale. Sales people very often feel that their product or service is priced too high. They have this illusion that they could sell more if the price was lowered but this is simply not true. The first step to changing this mindset is to consider what the customer is getting once they have purchased your product or service. How much they will benefit from its use. And then re-consider the Price/Quality/Value equation. Your product may seem like it is a lot of money but when you focus on the value your customer will get, the investment seems insignificant.