Service — Good or Bad — Sets You Apart

“If I Google ‘Interior Designers in Detroit,” I asked my audience the other day, “how many listings would I find?”

“25,” someone said.

“100,” someone else guessed.

“A few hundred,” a third person replied.

Correct answer: over 5 million.

How to differentiate your design firm in these competitive times was the central theme of my ”Supersize Your Success” CEU presentation to ASID’s Michigan chapter.

Unique marketing and social networking strategies were key discussion points.

So was the idea of offering stellar customer service.

Service.

Now, there’s a topic you don’t hear that much about in this high speed, high tech  era.

But you should.

“Good enough” customer service isn’t good enough anymore. Clients and prospects simply have too many alternate buying options to consider, should they be disatisfied with your service.

Consider the study which I cite in the book: Sell Yourself! 501 Ways to Get Them to Buy from YOU:

If 99.9% Customer Service was good enough, then…

+ two million documents will be lost by the IRS this year

+ 22,000 checks will be deducted from the wrong bank accounts in the next hour

+ 1,314 calls will be misplaced by telecommunications services every minute

+ 12 babies will be given to the wrong parents each day

+ 18,322 pieces of mail will be mishandled in the next hour

+ 880,000 credit cards will contain misinformation

+ $9,690 will be spent each day on defective, unsafe sporting equipment

+ 268,500 defective tires will be shipped this year

+ 20,000 incorrect drug presciptions will be written in the next 12 months

+ 107 incorrect medical procedures will be peformed by the end of the day today.

Fred Berns offers marketing and sales training for the interior design industry.