Above All Else – The one skill you need to master

Like it or not, YOU are in customer service. You are a business. Your time and skills are the products you sell. Your body and mind are the tools you use. Whether you work for yourself or someone else, your success ultimately depends on your ability to Acquire, Retain and Please your customers.

If you haven’t realized this, you’re way behind on the game.

You’re thinking “What do I know; I don’t work on the sales floor. I work in a back-office function with a lot of smart people, a bunch of idiots and a plethora of assholes.”

 

Unfortunately for you, those idiots and assholes are your customers.

 

If you’re an accountant working in the back-office, who do you think your customers are?

Your most important customer is your boss. You are selling her on you, your brand and the potential she perceives you to have (know your shit). Inability to deliver and lack of motivation will very quickly give her buyer’s remorse.

Your secondary customers – the others who depend on you to make/review entries and perform accountant-like duties. These secondary customers can influence your primary customer so you should always be ON. Piss off a peer and the salt will leak into your brand overnight.

Good customer service means being reliable, likable and knowledgeable. Always deliver what you’ve committed to delivering (under promise but over deliver). No one can recall the times when you came in on schedule, but they damn well will remember if you’re early (sandbag – yeah I said it).

Finally, don’t ever deliberately piss off your customer. A pissed off customer will remember. In fact, the negative experience you provided will last longer in his memory than anything positive you’ve done. And so … in the long chance that he has the ability to influence your career growth, guess which way he’ll go.

Think of yourself as a brand like Nike, Amazon, Zappos etc. Your reputation can make or break your brand. The best way to cultivate a great reputation is to provide great customer service.