Do you consistently deliver excellent customer service? A 360° view will get you there AND will generate cross-sell and up-sell opportunities for your business

Well, this is of course not a news flash, but it bears repeating. Sellers who consistently deliver excellent customer service gain improved loyalty and more repeat business from established customers.

Another news flash: "Delivering Superior Customer Service" is no longer a differentiator. It stopped being that once everybody made that claim in their mission statement.

So which are the critical pieces you need to put in place in order to deliver excellent customer service? Here's an action plan to get you started, or to improve, or to double-check that you are doing all the right things.

1. Poll your customers - how else would you know how you are doing and take appropriate action? I would caution you not to rely exclusively on customer surveys, but to use other means such as a direct phone conversation and yearly review meetings. Anytime there is a customer event, your internal processes should trigger a follow-up phone call to ask for feed-back on that event, and to probe further on your company's performance across the board.

Read our guide to improved customer service

RMA: Revenue-generating activity or necessary evil?

Service organizations have traditionally shown much more enthusiasm for investing in their product shipping and handling processes than for managing the return and repair of damaged goods. This is changing as companies realize that the handling of returns may be a hidden opportunity to drive more profits to their bottom line, regardless of the disposal of returned goods: repair, refurbishment, disposal/recycling and remarketing.

A true "reverse logistics" or "reverse service chain" process is a complicated cycle that involves each of the following critical functions.

Read our guide to a successful reverse logistics service chain

Stumped by Sluggish Web Site Traffic? Here's a mini-SEO (Search Engine Optimization) Tutorial

1. Identify keywords
2. Put keywords in Page Title
3. Put keywords in Page URL
4. Put keywords in Meta Data
5. Put keywords in your H1 text
6. Use keywords in the page
7. Monitor your rank

Optimize your website to get found by more prospects and convert more of them into leads and paying customers with an inbound marketing system.

Here's how and why

WAC Consulting Group 367 West Main Street Northborough, MA 01532

Robert Distler rdis@wacinc.com