#1
If you put your customer above all else in decision-making your business will thrive. Think about what they like, what they hate, what they desire and what they fear.
#2
If you put your internal customers – any staff, and potentially yourself – second, your business will thrive. This is second because if you or I only set our businesses up and worked the hours we wanted to (e.g. 10-12 Monday through Friday) we wouldn’t do very well. Let’s face it; in our fitness industry we do need to do some early mornings, evenings, and weekends if we’re really going to serve a large target market. True, we may have a niche that makes it possible to narrow our focus – perhaps work inside a corporate building with workday exercisers and not have to do that, or we might cater to older adults retired and call it a day by 3pm.
Fewer of us will do that however. And even if not ourselves physically in the space we operate, we’re “on call” if we have staff there.
I know and you do, trainers who brag about how successful they are and how much they earn. Yet, the same trainer is working 12 hour days and exhausted by the weekends, recovering to begin again before dawn the next Monday morning. That’s not a rich life. You want to make you serving customers and clients a win for each of you.
#3
Walk through every protocol, customer service experience from viewing an ad or interacting with your website to walking in your door with the feeling of the customer #1 or #2 in mind. Is it working? What could be better? Does it “wow” them? Or does it simply get the job done?
Improving your customer service:
Where do you need more boundaries – to benefit you?
Where do you need more boundaries – to benefit the customer?
Where does a customer need an additional touch or contact that could be handled without a compromise of your boundary?
~Debra