If you are serious about your customer’s experience at your web site, and want to provide them with an unprecedented level of service, you really need to develop a customer pledge. This pledge is a written guideline of exactly that it is that your customers can expect from you while they are conducting business with you. Done correctly, it will convey your customer service philosophy to your customers.
Many people have trouble getting started when putting their first customer pledge together, so I’ve put my top 5 tips for creating one together here for you.
1. Start by answering basic questions about your true feelings about your customers
* Do you know your customers and speak with the regularly, or are them mainly anonymous people that you are doing business with?
* How critical is repeat business to your operation?
* How important is each customer to your business?
* Are you will to do whatever it takes to keep your customers satisfied?
* Is there anything you are not willing to do for your customers?
2. Outline specifics on how you will communicate with your customers on a daily basis
How will customers be able to contact you when they need to?
* Will you have a vehicle where your customers can be communicated with 24 hours a day, such as email or a toll free phone line?
* Will you provide a way for them to contact you within business hours only?
* Will you expect your customers to contact you via mail only?
You’ll also need to outline how customers can expect to be responded to:
* With a set amount of time after your customer’s email is received?
* Immediately via email? By phone? By Mail?
3. Outline what you do that is special
For example, do you contact your customers via phone to ensure their product has arrived and that they are happy with it? Do you follow up with an email thanking your customers for their business? Do you send your customers shipment tracking information, along with your contact information should a package not arrive as scheduled?
4. Communicate your customer pledge with your staff
What good is a customer pledge if your employees aren’t aware of it and on board with it? Send your draft customer pledge out to all of your employees and ask for input. Make additions and deletions based on suggestions and what you feel comfortable with.
5. Write the pledge
After you’ve gone through the first four steps, write the pledge. Keep in mind that it can be as general or as specific as you’d like it to be. But it must reflect your personal customer service philosophy. If it doesn’t, you customers will easily be able to tell your pledge isn’t worth the paper it’s written on because your actions will likely deviate greatly from the pledge you have communicated to them.
Having and following a customer pledge can help put your customers at ease, which will mean they will be more apt to do business with you now and well into the future.
