Top rules for good customer service

Everything about your business is riding on your customer service. How do you make sure it is good?

It’s true that there are some big companies, which are also infamous for their horrific customer service. Of course, they are also the ones being gradually displaced as new startups disrupt their industries and provide better experiences.

Better customer service alone has proven to be able to create multi-billion dollar companies. Few startups are going to live long enough to spread their wings without it.

Even if you can get away with it, and want to blow half of your funding on burying bad reviews, it is going to doom your company sooner or later.

Here’s how to do better.

1. Realize Great Customer Service Is Your Number One Priority

Without customers, you don’t have a business. Period. Forget about that shiny business plan as it will be worthless.

It doesn’t matter if your business is B2C, B2B, online or enterprise, software or hardware. Customer service must be your number one priority.

It’s true that once you take money from investors, your shareholders may be your number one legal responsibility.

Though, even if they don’t agree with you in the short term and your quarterly numbers may not be as great, doing right by your customers will serve your investors best long term.

Short term results might get you through the next funding round and boost acquisition and traction numbers. But, if you care about the business, your staff, and any mission beyond the money, customers have to come first.

2. Choose Your Investors Wisely

In order to do well at customer service, you’ve got to pick the right angel investors, start-up business advisors, and board members who will allow you to deliver it.

Make sure they are aligned with you on this before you take their money. Otherwise, you are going to have your hands tied. At some point, you may not like running your business anymore.

You might have to abandon your venture and be prevented from competing in this space, or you could be booted out.

We’ve seen plenty of founders and CEOs run out of their own companies. Their failure can almost always be traced back to some form of this problem.

Recently we’ve seen Larry Page and Sergey Brin leave Google, WeWork’s CEO step down, and more. Upwork’s CEO also just stepped down after the company hiked fees on their best and most loyal customers to over 20%, and drove the company’s share price down by over 55% in less than a year.

That makes it one of the worst IPOs in history, and with stock prices down to just $10, there isn’t much more room to lose.

3. Make Sure Your Team Knows How Important It Is

You’re not going to be on the frontlines dealing with every customer all the time. Not unless you are only running a food truck as a startup.

So, your team has to know. This is where most companies break down and it all falls apart. They get too big, too fast, and lose all common sense in customer service.

Make sure your team knows that wowing customers and making them happy is their number one job. That’s the only reason they are working for you. So, they had better do that well.

You are going to get what you reward and get less of what you punish in your organization. Be very open and visible about this. Reward those delivering awesome service. Be clear there is no room for those who don’t.

4. Hire for It

IQ, skills, etc. are okay. When was the last time you specifically looked at a candidate’s background or interviewed them on their customer service, and how they’ve delighted customers in the past? If service is supposed to be number one in your organization, you also have to prioritize hiring based on it. You might also want to target investors who have proven to bring great customer service to other companies they’ve worked with.

5. Empower Your People To Follow Through

All the talk of prioritizing service is a lie unless you actually empower your people to deliver it. If you don’t give them the power and authority to please your customers, then they can’t deliver. Customers aren’t happy, staff aren’t happy, you aren’t happy, and investors definitely aren’t happy. Know your lifetime customer value, including all of their goodwill and referrals and the next generation of business from them. Realize that almost anything you have to do to resolve issues is worth it

6. Go Beyond Being Courteous

One of the top pieces of advice you’ll see for delivering good customer service is being courteous. That’s one point that always seems to be there. That just isn’t enough. There is a big bank, which has being courteous as their motto. It’s in giant letters right behind their cashiers. However, if the service team can’t really help, or the organization is simultaneously stealing their customers’ identities, money, and homes, then being courteous really isn’t going to do anything but infuriate people even more.

7. Put Yourself In Your Customers Shoes

If you’re not sure what good customer service means, put yourself in their shoes. If your business is going to have any chance to survive and thrive, then you had better know your customers incredibly well. If you’ve lost touch, then pause everything, and figure this out first.

Summary

The ability of your business to launch, raise money, survive and grow all comes down to customer service. In fact, if you only get this right, everything else can fall into place for you. Know these rules and prioritize them in your organization from day one.

Alejandro Cremades is a serial entrepreneur and the author of The Art of Startup Fundraising. With a foreword by ‘Shark Tank‘ star Barbara Corcoran, and published by John Wiley & Sons, the book was named one of the best books for entrepreneurs. The book offers a step-by-step guide to today‘s way of raising money for entrepreneurs.Most recently, Alejandro built and exited CoFoundersLab which is one of the largest communities of founders online.Prior to CoFoundersLab, Alejandro worked as a lawyer at King & Spalding where he was involved in one of the biggest investment arbitration cases in history ($113 billion at stake). Alejandro is an active speaker and has given guest lectures at the Wharton School of Business, Columbia Business School, and at NYU Stern School of Business. Alejandro has been involved with the JOBS Act since inception and was invited to the White House and the US House of Representatives to provide his stands on the new regulatory changes concerning fundraising online.