Devoted to customer service and the principles of exceptional customer services

I can echo the message in this article. As a startup you get a pretty accurate and unambiguous picture of what is working, what isn't and where your money is really coming from. After a while in business the routes in may be less clear to you, or maybe you have the opportunity to see what you want to see and justify your strategies accordingly

I was quite optimistic about how well something like sponsored google ads would work (targeted of course). In retrospect although I guess this has helped raise my profile and at least get the site visited (until I manage to climb the unsponsored rankings), revenue has been disappointing. It doesn't cost me - it brings in enough to cover itself - but I couldn't survive on that alone

Now I provide services - it is an experiential product - and if you think about it, a cold internet search is never going to give people the confidence the experience will be a positive one (no matter how warm and welcoming the copy on your site). I've found there is no substitute for personal contact - give people reasons to choose you - and that might mean reaching out and meeting them more than half-way at first until that trust is achieved. This will often pay dividends as one job may lead to two more - those two may lead to four etc etc. Internet marketing doesn't work like that

Building relationships with customers is very different from providing customer service. My most recent interaction with my cable company just last week was a great example.

I spent the first 5 minutes on the phone with this company going through a myriad of prompts all designed to give me automated information pertaining to the reason for my call that, at best, might answer my actual question 50% of the time. What I wanted was a person on the other end of the line who would listen to my question and work with me on a solution.

Our contact center does not try to "hide" from our customers. All of our service channels (email, live chat, and phone) are prominently displayed, our philosophy is to use only one prompt before routing a call to a representative, and our average speed of answer metrics are ridiculously quick.

We do this for one simple reason: Relationships Matter! It's one of our company core values and by living it on a daily basis, we are rewarded with high customer loyalty and satisfaction.

Relationships are absolutely essential, you’re right. I think it’s something that many people in service-oriented industries forget and why often people fail with everything from marketing campaigns to entire business plans. I work with computer consultants, and I think the big thing that happens in that industry is that professionals fall in love with the technology and forget that really when it comes down to it, building relationships is even more important than their technical expertise (even though obviously technology is at the heart of it). Building relationships is what brings you great, strong referrals, better qualified prospects for your business and better quality clients. And you can’t get people to know, like and trust you without working really hard at building relationships, and without those elements, you have no credibility and no chance at really eliciting loyalty.

I agree that building relationships is an important key, not only in business but also in life.

Customer service can be the first point of contact for a customer, and as such, people in this role of being the first contact with a customer, have a definite ability to skew the relationship with that customer in one way or another -- so yet, customer service is all about customer relationships.

Nice post.