Seven Ways To Delight Your Customers

If you want to delight your customers, then the book by Steve Curtin, Delight Your Customers -- 7 Simple Ways to Raise Your Customer Service from Ordinary to Extraordinary, is a must-read for you and your employees.

The book explains the seven ways for you and your employees to demonstrate exceptional customer service:

1. Express genuine interest
2. Offer sincere and specific compliments
3. Share unique knowledge
4. Convey authentic enthusiasm
5. Use appropriate humor
6. Provide pleasant surprises
7. Deliver service heroics

"Exceptional customer service typically costs no more to deliver than poor customer service," explains Curtin.

For example:

• How much does it cost to express genuine interest in customers or to anticipate their needs?
• Does it cost more to display a sense of urgency or to pay attention to detail?
• Do you pay your employees more to smile, to make eye contact, or to add energy to their voices?

Curtin reminds readers that:

• Customers don't establish relationships with businesses.  They establish relationships with the people inside the businesses.

And, here are some of Curtin's recommended best ways to express genuine interest in your customers:

• Offer personalized greetings
• Use names
• Practice assertive hospitality
• Ask questions
• Cosset
• Anticipate needs
• Remember preferences
• Pay attention to detail
• Display a sense of urgency
• Solicit feedback
• Offer personal farewells
• Follow up on service

And, finally, when soliciting feedback, do so without marginalizing your customers' suggestions or sounding defensive.