Great service is the lifeblood of any business. You can sell anything to anyone once, but unless you support those sales with stellar customer service, that sale won’t stick around for long – and you certainly won’t be able to sell that customer anything else. At its core, customer service is about forming a relationship with the customer. It’s about transcending the business engagement and building a true relationship, and like any relationship, it’s about building trust, treating each other with respect, following through on you say you will do, and most importantly… listening.

Listening to customers when they have a problem or question is the most crucial step in helping them.  It is so important to try to put yourself in their shoes…see the issue from their point of view.  Before you even begin to think about solving their problem, it is essential that you understand their perspective as completely and thoroughly as you can.  Once armed with this information, you can then begin to apply your knowledge and expertise to solving the problem.

So how can you ensure that your service continues to improve and guarantee both your current clients and prospects that you do provide great service? That’s right – by listening. Anyone can tell you that they provide great service, but truly only those using or experiencing the service are in a position to do that. As a result companies should be asking their customers to provide feedback about their service experience. An easy way to do this is in the form of a quick survey or rating tool. This allows business owners to make adjustments as to how they engage with customers, and learn from their experiences.

At Building Engines, we provide our CRE property owner and manager clients with Operations Performance Management (OPM). This tool allows our clients automate workflows and notifications, and set and measure service delivery performance against targets. This delivers “in the moment” service performance visibility, measurable results, and a simple dashboard that allows you to monitor your total service delivery, including tenant satisfaction throughout the life of a work order and beyond. With OPM, property owners and managers have unprecedented insight into the activities and performance results that can directly impact NOI and inform decision making.

At the end of the day, the answer to the question “Everyone says they deliver great service – why should we believe you?” should be, because YOU told us so!  As you look to engage with vendors and partners in the future, ask about their current customer satisfaction rating.  This is a great way to get a glimpse into what life will be like on the other side.