You’ve worked really hard on your marketing. You know what to say to show prospects how you stand out and why they should work with you, instead of any of your competitors. The wording on your website and your LinkedIn profile focuses on the emotions that your clients want to feel when they work with you. Your messages hook them.

Your sales process works really well too. Once a potential client has made an enquiry, you speak to them about how they want to feel when they work with you. There is a strong emotional connection between you – they know how they want to feel and they can see that working with you will allow them to feel that way. They sign up to work with you – hooray!

At this point, you might breathe a huge sigh of relief for having taken on a new client. The hard part is done, especially if you don’t like marketing and sales!

But this is no time to relax. Now is the time to make sure that you don’t lose your new client by not treating them as they expect to be treated.

Standing Out

Just like marketing and sales, customer service should be considered from a strategic, planned point of view, not a tactical one. You might have heard me talk about ‘Strategy before Tactics.’ This applies to customer service just as much as it applies to marketing.

Customer service is not a campaign, a one-off activity. Do you know my other marketing mantra? ‘Ad hoc marketing does not work!’ The same is true of customer service. It should be active, not passive. It’s about building long-term relationships with your clients, rather than aiming for quick fixes.

Customer service is about delivering the service, emotions and value that your clients are expecting. If a new client decides to work with you because, in your marketing, you promise to help them to feel safe and secure, then you must deliver that safety and security. Don’t try to persuade them to go for big business growth and scary goals if they want to feel peace of mind. That’s what they are expecting from you and that’s what you must deliver.

When your marketing messages (your promises) match up with your actions (your customer service), you’ll be able to use both, in tandem, to stand out from the crowd.

Stamp it Out

It’s time to break the rules and think differently about the service that you provide to your clients.

Recently, I phoned the company that insures my horsebox to ask if I could add a friend to my insurance just for one day. He needed to borrow my equine wheels. The lady I spoke to at the local branch was very helpful. She knows my friend, as he insures his horse with her company. She was chatty and helpful. It was all heading in the right direction.

I needed to get some extra information from my friend, so I ended the call with Hannah at the insurance company and called him. Armed with his details, I called Hannah back. This time, sadly, my call was diverted to the head office call handers. Five minutes later, after listening to too many of those “Did you know you can get the information you need from our website?” type messages; and pressing 1 for another annoying message and 2 to be put on hold, I finally got to speak to a real person. “No, we can’t do that in time for tomorrow,” I was told. “But Hannah just said I could…”

Hannah knew how to bend the rules, to look after loyal customers. The person at the HQ had not been given any licence to listen to what customers actually need. Don’t be a nameless, faceless machine. Be a real person. Find out what your clients want and need. Then look for ways of delivering that, with the best possible customer service. That’s what will make you really stand out.