Yes, you DO work in customer service

Need evidence? Try asking yourself these questions:

Where does the money come from?

In any business, but especially small business, cash is king… and you’re the court jester. You may love your work, but at the end of the day, the truth is that bills and/or staff still need to be paid, the lights need to be kept on and food needs to be put on the table. 

Since your customers are the ones who (hopefully!) pay you for the work you do, it’s entirely in your best interests to keep them happy – and while of course that means doing a good job, it also means answering the phone with a smile, replying to emails reasonably quickly and occasionally going the extra mile.

How do you plan to stay in business?

Keeping your business running is dependent on whether your customers stick around. Most successful businesses have built a following of loyal, dedicated customers who pay their bills on time and eagerly recommend the quality of the service they’ve received.

If you’re not giving your clients any reason to part with their hard-earned cash (i.e. the work is late, the quality is unreliable, or even worse, you don’t invoice!), it will be hard for you to tough it out long-term. Putting effort into how you service your customers (which sounds suspiciously like customer service to me!) will help your business go the distance.

Want more articles like this? Check out the customer service section.

Similarly, if you don’t give your clients any reason to recommend you to others who may need your product or service, you’re shooting yourself in the foot. Studies have shown that word-of-mouth recommendations are far more powerful than any advertisement – and they’re far more economical as well!

Here’s a quick thought – how often have you bagged out bad customer service that you’ve received? How often have you gone out of your way to tell someone never to go somewhere? Is that just me? Surely not…

So next time you’re doing a job, think of how you’re serving your customers. Taking care of them will go a very long way towards growing your business.

How important do you think customer service is for business?