Regardless of the size of your business, it’s good practice to have a follow up process in place after you’ve dealt with a customer. If you offer some sort of service, it’s especially helpful to not only understand how you’re doing from the customer’s vantage point, but asking the customer about their opinions shows that you care about them on a human level, and not because they’re just another person to walk through your doors. Too much of a good thing can be pretty bad, however.
Perhaps this is a good example of too many cooks in the kitchen, but there have been instances in which a customer has received a service from a company, only to be bombarded with emails and phone calls asking to be rated on the quality of said service either after, or worse, during the experience.
Let’s say you’re in need of some car maintenance and repair, so you set up an appointment with a local repair shop. You drop your vehicle off, repairs are made rather effortlessly, so you pay for the services rendered and you head back to the office. Thirty minutes later, your phone rings. It’s a pre-recorded message asking for your opinion on the service you received. You oblige, giving the repair shop a fair rating for the quick service.
The next day, you receive a call from a live person at the repair shop, asking if your experience was acceptable, and then reminding you that you would be getting a call from HQ to do a survey, except you try to remind the repair shop you’ve already completed the survey, they bid you good day, and after that phone call, you receive yet another pre-recorded message asking for your opinion on the service you received.
For those keeping track, that would be a whopping three times in this hypothetical situation where the customer is asked for an opinion on service. While this is hypothetical, it’s actually something that does happen with many companies, and there is no quicker way to lose a customer than overwhelm them with your interest in their opinions.
When it comes to customer service, think less is more. Quality versus quantity. Make sure that all of your locations are on the same page and, maybe, update that CRM software of yours, because inundating a customer with calls is only going to turn them away, not make them feel as if they are loved above all.
Attentiveness is on the list of ways to go above and beyond customer service, but excessiveness is not. Meaningful, memorable, fun, unusual and unexpected experiences influence the way customers perceive you in general and feel about you in particular. Attentiveness and recognition cost nothing, but any of these in excess can cost a lot. Remember, it's the little details that keep people talking about you and recommending everyone they know to you, not how many times you’ve called.