The Best Service Is Fast
What is the best way to serve consumers who have all the information in the world at their fingertips? The internet has changed consumers forever. Before the internet, in the prehistory of customer empowerment, consumers lived in darkness. The information that consumers got about products came mostly from advertisements; top down pronouncements of a products comparative superiority from the company itself. It was hard to get anything more than anecdotal evidence from other consumers about how good a product really was. The internet changed all that. Consumers are smarter than ever, and want to know exactly what they can expect before they lay down dollar one. Moreover they expect to have exactly the experience that other consumers have had. When a consumer sees some product has a four star rating, and they have a one star experience, they will fully expect to have this made right. And it’s the foolish company who fails to make it right; making every effort to turn a customer’s one star experience into a four star experience.
Then along came the Smartphone, which put the internet into the pockets and purses of consumers as they move through the world, making purchases large and small. When the internet was only at home, consumers were still vulnerable to shopping in relative darkness. Now, it’s possible to get volumes of information about products and services at any time and any place.
The dawn of the age of customer empowerment has resulted in an expectation of truly superior customer service. If a business can’t provide it, the consumer will go elsewhere. The internet has rounded up an unprecedented number of competitors in a single place where they are within striking distance of each other. To stand out, a business simply must provide the best service. Providing the best service can mean many things, but in the case of a business model where the consumers submits an online inquiry through a webform, providing the best customer service starts with being the first on the phone with the prospect. It probably does not matter how nice you are prepared to be, or how well you know your product if you are trying to make an impression in a voicemail. Providing the best service starts with providing the fastest service.
