5 tips for exceeding customer expectations

In this day and age, it’s no longer just about meeting a customer’s expectations … if you truly want to succeed, you should strive to exceed your customer’s expectations. The best way to do this? Through superior customer service and interactions throughout the life of a project. If you want your business to stand out against your competition, try incorporating these habits into your customer service process:

1. Truly get to know your customer before offering a solution.
   Getting to know your customer(s) is the most critical step, and that doesn’t just mean making note of the little information they’ve given you in your first few conversations. This means getting to know them through actual in-person interactions (or phone calls will do too). Moving forward, this information about your customers will prove invaluable as it will help you to know exactly what your customers want from this project.
2. Always be early, not just on-time.
   It probably seems silly that arriving just on-time to a client meeting isn’t enough, but arriving a few minutes early makes the world of difference. Not only is it respectful, but it shows that you are enthusiastic about getting started. Also, it wouldn’t hurt to deliver project results a little earlier than planned. Accomplishing this is obviously a little more difficult, but if you can make it happen, your customers will sure love you for it!
3. Save your clients money where you can.
   Can you just imagine how grateful your customer would be when they find out you ended up saving them money when they were expecting to spend more? Think about it, nothing makes people happier than when they can save money.
4. Go the extra mile.
   You should always be thinking about what can be done to take that extra step to make your customer even happier. Whether it’s a small gift for a holiday or birthday, a handwritten note, shoveling a customer’s driveway, a clever detail that you added to the project you are doing for them, etc., these gestures will be sure to exceed a customer’s expectations!
5. Utilize feedback.
   To ensure that you’re always exceeding your customer’s expectations, you should request feedback every so often, and actually listen to it. If you’ve developed a solid relationship with your customers, they will be honest in their feedback and that information can help you to either keep up the good work or teach you what you need to improve on.

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