ICS conference
Next week I am speaking at the Institute of Customer Service Annual Conference in London and I am genuinely looking forward to it. I get asked to speak at a lot of events and this is by far and away one of my favourites.
Why? Because customer service is one of my passions. I believe it is an absolute essential when it comes to running a [successful] business and I don’t think Great Guns would have come as far as it has done without a genuine commitment on my part – and that of all my team – to excellent customer service. So why not wax lyrical about it?
The main thrust of my presentation will be the importance of good customer service and the different techniques used to achieve it. At Great Guns we pride ourselves on communication with our customers through lots of different mediums and I really think this multi-pronged approach has certainly been to our advantage.
We also seek feedback regularly. I spend a lot of time talking to our customers, asking them how they feel about working with Great Guns and what we can do to improve our service for them. Because I feel so strongly about the role good customer service plays in a business, our customers tend to stay with us, giving us a solid reputation for client retention, in an industry that is notoriously bad.
And this isn’t just the case with our clients, it extends to our staff too. Attracting and retaining great talent is also essential for me as a business leader, because if I have good employees then the clients will be happy and in turn, will continue to use our services – it’s a two-way process. As part and parcel of the presentation, I will also explore the theme of leadership. Without good direction, it is difficult to motivate staff to generate results, which can then reflect badly on the service delivered for the client – resulting in something of a catch-22 situation.
But I’m not just going to the conference to deliver my presentation and leave. It is just as – if not more – important for me to listen to the presentations that are being given on the day. The institute has managed to secure some really high profile, successful business people to present including Julie Southern, chief commercial and financial officer at Virgin Atlantic and Des Benjamin, Chief Executive at SimplyHealth, and there is nothing that I find more useful than learning about the techniques used to great success in other organisations. Hopefully I will come away with lots of practical new ideas for how we can raise our customer service game even further at Great Guns.
