It doesn’t matter if you have the best product on the planet, a sizzling marketing & PR plan, or something that will change the course of [fill in extraordinary unfulfilled need here].
If you don’t have great customer service, you won’t get very far.
While you don’t have to spend your time mollycoddling your consumers or patrons, you do need to listen to them when they have something to say. Some people are expressive by nature. However, have you ever considered that your unhappiest customers don’t have to say anything at all — they just have to leave? How could you ever learn to improve your product or service offering if you never took the time to listen, let alone ask them?
Customer service is part of the user experience. It should be built in, designed, planned around, executed, and managed. It is as important as balancing the books and generating new business. When you plan for growth, also plan to maintain your service relationships! They’ll count on your reliability to get them to their next step.
