You need coffee and muffins to jumpstart the day for 20 people attending a morning meeting. You check the yellow pages to find a coffee shop. It turns out there is one just down the road so you pick up the phone to place an order for pick up in 30 minutes. The phone rings and rings and rings. You hang up, thinking you must have dialled the wrong number. You try again and the phone rings and rings and rings some more. Nobody answers.

You are planning a family vacation and go online to check out hotels and restaurants in the area. Three hotels pique your interest so you send each of them a quick email, requesting availability and rate information. There are also two restaurants that seem interesting but their menus don’t list any vegetarian options and your daughter is vegetarian. So you send the restaurants a quick email to see if they can accommodate special requests. Only one of the three hotels responds to your request and you never hear back from either restaurant.

Excellent customer service starts before a customer ever sets foot in your business. Excellent service starts by making it easy for your customers to get information and to do business with you.

How easy are you to do business with?

• Does your website answer the questions your customers are asking?
• Does your website make it easy for customers to purchase on-line?
• If a customer does have additional questions, how easy is it for them to get an answer from you?
• Will your customers get a timely response to their questions?
• When a customer calls, is the phone answered promptly?
• Is the person answering the phone friendly, knowledgeable and professional? Will that person be able to answer the questions and complete the transaction or will the customer have to be transferred to someone else?

The best way to answer these questions is to look at your business from your customer’s perspective. Be the customer or better yet, ask a trusted friend or colleague to be the customer.

Ask your colleague or friend to visit your website. Ask them to click the links, send an email, and make an on-line purchase. How easy was it? Did the website create a positive first impression?

Ask your colleague or friend to call your business. How quickly was the phone answered? What type of service did the person on the other end of the line provide?

Take the time to find out what challenges and frustrations your customers are experiencing and get rid of them. You … and your customers … will be glad you did.

For more information on creating positive service impressions, visit www.servicedge.ca/.