Whether it’s time to write an ad for Facebook or creating an offer on Google and sending out a post card, marketing is an important part of your job in regards to driving traffic and awareness to your business.

If you promote, ‘Great Dependable Service’ and you aren’t at the top of your game, hold the marketing effort. Don’t promote your business; fix it first.

You don’t need transactions, you need customers for life. Your growth goal should be to find long-term relationship customers, not one-time customers. The customer won’t stick around if you don’t deliver ‘Great Dependable Service’, consistently.

Many service professionals say their biggest growth factor for new business is customer referrals. Ask yourself if your customer experience and service quality will get you a referral. If not, it is time to fix it.

Customers for life, come from the heart of your business culture; where the team knows the why of the business. They appreciate each other and have fun at work. A great culture and caring team will do what is right for the customer, always. A great customer experience starts internally, and never rule out proper training at all levels of the company.

However, you’ll need more than a great culture to win over customers, it is just a start. Well documented systems/processes, clean customer lobby, and rest rooms are essentials for winning the heart and perception of the customer.

Do you have customer service standards? Is the work completed the same day? Is an oil change only forty-five minutes? Are your safety inspections completed in 30 minutes? Do you have pick-up and delivery service? Rental cars or loaners? A good quality control program? A sure way to communicate with your customers such as email or text?

Whatever you market about your business you must meet those expectations and more. Never market what you cannot deliver, and always aspire to be just a little better than the shop down the road. Be like Disney. Looking the customer in the eye and smiling is a customer service foundation at Disney.

Start your list of improvements so you stand out as a great service company and then tell the world.

Carm Capriotto, AAP

Host, Remarkable Results Radio Podcast
remarkableresults.biz/tag

Listen to your aftermarket colleagues share great ideas on great service and culture. Go to the TAG Cloud click on ‘Customer Service’ and ‘Business Culture’.