Answering the Call: Provide the Best Service to Your Clients

Posted July 12, 2013 in Accurate message delivery, professional answering service by admin

Are your service offerings the best option for your clients? As business managers and owners, we all strive to do our best in our professions, but for most of us, there are at least several other local providers of the very same services we offer. So what is it specifically that makes your clients choose you and stay with you as their best option over other providers? When a business is asked this question, the answers can vary widely, even among its own employees. However, when clients are asked, the answer always centers around one of the following three items: relationship, perceived value or customer experience.

It’s the Relationship – Silly

The service driven businesses that we are in demand that we interact with clients (or patients) on a daily basis. Sure the world is getting more and more digital, but for our business practices, the human factor will always be there. The ability to quickly build and maintain good quality relationships with your prospects and clients is paramount; probably even more so these days than ever before. The Internet can get us all the information we want, but it can’t act as a trusted advisor. When consumers or businesses want to hire a professional service (vs. just purchasing a product), they want to deal with trusted advisors. Your ability to build relationships and be recognized as the trusted advisor for your specialty is likely a big reason your clients would consider you their best option for the service you provide.

What is Your Perceived Value?

Next is perceived value. Some clients can be very analytical individuals, so for these folks, the relationship aspect can only get you so far. If you were an Olympic runner who had a severe knee injury that required surgery and your options were a surgeon who had been successfully performing knee surgeries for athletes for over 20 years vs. a surgeon fresh out of medical school, but at half the price, who would you go with? Although the surgery is the same, the perceived value of the surgeon with 20 plus years of experience is significantly higher. Even at double the cost, most would choose the experienced surgeon because they perceive those years of success and experience as an investment in ensuring they can continue their own career after their recovery. Obviously there are many other measures besides years of experience for perceived value, the important thing here is to make a habit of asking your clients how they perceive the value of the services you provide to them; you may be surprised at the answers, and you will get a much better understanding of what makes you “the best” in their eyes.

Have The Best Customer Experience

When was the last time you had a great customer experience – and what were the things that really stood out to make it great? This piece encompasses all interactions that your clients have with you including the politeness of your staff, the promptness of your services, the ease (or difficulty) of managing service agreements/paperwork, and the follow up efforts after the service has been rendered. You could have the best relationship and perceived value possible, but if you consistently provide sub-par customer experiences, your clients will seek elsewhere. The services you provide take time; they may have complicated processes or could even be difficult to explain. Be sure to make managing clients’ expectations a top priority, and take the extra time to see your services from their point of view. Mediocre customer experiences are everywhere; find a few things, even simple things, that help you stand-out from the crowd and you will have a lot more people referring to you as the best one for the services you provide.

Striving for the Top

Here at Main Line TeleCommunications, we strive to be the best answering service to our clients on a daily basis. We provide outsourced communications labor, and know very well that each call we take in representing our clients can assist in strengthening their relationships, building their perceived value and enhancing the customer experience of their clients. What about your business? We know you’re also striving to do your best. Please share your thoughts on which of the three key elements above are most important to you and your clients.

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