Customer Service – How do you market it?
Posted by: Chad Massaker / Category: Business Management, Community, Managed IT Services, Social Media
Instead of telling you what I think, I want to know what you all think. In a commodity type business, such as IT support, you look for any distinct advantage, any method of differentiation that you can to market your business. It’s tough because there are so many strategies. If you develop a new product or service that no one has in order to differentiate yourself, you will soon be copied and lose that edge. Re-bundle your services, same thing.
When I sat down with our customer advisory council about this, we were told our biggest distinction was our customer service. However, I am finding that difficult to market because I want the message to rise above the status of a platitude. When is the last time you went to a networking function only to hear people say the same old crap:
“We pride ourselves on customer service”
“We the most reliable, dependable, etc.”
blah, blah blah. It’s all talk unless you can prove it.
What I want to market, the story that I want to tell the world, is that we are the best at what we do. Something like:
“Everyone claims to have great customer service, but we can prove it!”
Some of the ideas I have had are:
- Promoting that we are the most recommended IT consulting firm on Linkedin.com (already using this)
- Customer Service Award from the Better Business Bureau or some other type of entity (we have a competitor that has done this
I’m not thrilled with the idea of awards because I think people today realize that many such awards are shallow victories. The chance of you winning an award these days seems to be more about who you know than actually possessing the merit to deserve the honor.
I need a way to prove that Carceron is the best at Customer service and I need a way to spread the word. Can you even market customer service?
P.S. If you have any other ideas around differentiation for a managed IT services business such as mine, I am all ears.
P.S.S. I’m not looking for a marketing consultant, so please don’t reply with a solicitation.
Tags: awards, carceron, chad massaker, computer support, customer service, differentiator, distinct advantage, linkedin, Managed IT Services, platitude
March 3rd, 2010 at 1:21 pm
believe the best marketing tool for customer service is past (and current) clients. Asking your satisfied customers to take a moment to give you a good write up (or VIDEO comment ) that you can promote via your website or newsletter should increase the credibility of any pre-presented accolade.
Of course, this article in itself is a great marketing ploy, Mr. Massaker!
Ayshah Victoria Powers
Managing Director
ExecPointe, LLC Performance Strategies
March 3rd, 2010 at 4:59 pm
I hadn’t thought of it that way, but I guess it is… LOL… I was neck deep in writing our marketing plan when I was inspired to write this.
March 4th, 2010 at 9:37 am
Doing what you say you will do is no longer good enough for today’s consumers, including the business consumer. Word of mouth is still by far the best marketing with the highest return. So I agree with the comment by Ayshah, that asking for the kudos can go a long way. Written or video a testimony on your web or other marketing outreach can prove to be great back up. I would say you could take that one step further by making it a practice to talk about your customer service with your current customer. When you ask for a write-up what if you also asked “Who else do you know that would appreciate our level of customer service?” You’re not asking them if they know someone who ‘needs’ your product/service right now, just getting them thinking about their sphere of influence and hopefully giving you a new lead for someone who will appreciate what you provide.
The best way to market Good Customer Service is to provide Good Customer Service!
March 7th, 2010 at 8:22 pm
I could make the case that you don’t “market” customer service. As you said, everyone does that. Good customer service leads to people talking about you in the world. Which builds up and strengthens your brand. Which is good marketing…
Just be the best at what you do, and it will market itself…
March 18th, 2010 at 3:44 pm
Chad,
We use NetPromoter methodology to measure client satisfaction. It has become the standard and it is used by Apple, Harley Davidson, and GE to name a few. http://www.netpromoter.com/netpromoter_community/index.jspa
It helps us tremendousely in sales because every company says they have good customer service but can they prove it? We also copied salesforce.com idea of proving reliability, a key discussion in the voip space, by publically showcasing our 10 year track record of reliability-no password required and vendors, partners and competitors alike can see us-warts and all.
http://trust.m5net.com/
In the internet age, they are going to blog about you or tweet or something. You might as well just be honest and transparent in your dealings. This has helped us market our service as the trusted source in hosted phone systems.
March 23rd, 2010 at 9:54 pm
I’ve recently learned about NetPromoter after having seen one of our vendors use it repeatedly on us. I like the concept, however, after having researched it, there does not appear to be conclusive evidence that it is an effective measure. There are many sources that debunk it. What’s stranger is that the vendor that I am referencing only sells to other IT companies. Given how NetPromoter works: “On a scale of 1-10, how long would you be to recommend us?”, it seems strange to ask us if we would recommend a product to a competitor .