The Importance of Customer Service in Community

The Importance of Customer Service in Community

by Casey McKean July 22, 2019

Customer Service

Recently, when reading the Richmond Register, we came across an article that hit very close to home and affirmed our company core values. The article was in the Dear Annie column and was titled “Wanted: Customer Service.” You can read the article here. The article was addressing a concern a citizen had with a company’s customer service standards. Annie did a great job addressing the reader’s concern and was even able to pull some positives out of the experience. This article shed some light into an epidemic that is currently plaguing businesses. What anyone in the customer service profession can take away from this article is that customer service should be the key to successful business.

No matter who you are, you’ve been on the receiving end of all sorts of customer service in your life. Every once in a while you’ll come across some truly amazing customer service. Every other time ranges from not too bad to downright terrible. Coming up against terrible customer service can leave you feeling drained at best, and infuriated at its worst. Often times it can be enough to drive a loyal customer away into the arms of a competitor. A company can easily lose even more business if the disgruntled customers story goes viral on social media, all of which is a result of poor customer service.

It’s easy to see that good customer service is essential for a business. Still, businesses often fail to deliver a quality experience to their customers. This is often due to a lack of understanding as to WHY customer service is important. A business’s view of customer service should go beyond the lazy approach of bad customer service = less money. Businesses with customer service in their life-blood recognize the reason for customer service is not just to avoid negative attention and a loss of sales, but is there as a way to benefit the company name and to assist their customers, who are people, not numbers.

Here at Surge, we view customer service as the most important part of who we are. Customer service is not simply a tool to prevent the worst. We view our customer service as a way to represent what our company is and to promote our brand by leaving a customer satisfied with the entire process of ordering custom apparel. What we want is for our customers to walk away from their experience with us so pleased that they can’t help but mention us to their friends. Next time one of their friends needs to order custom apparel, they will immediately think about Surge and the positive review they heard. Many of our customers hear about us through word of mouth and a majority of our orders are from repeat customers. Great customer service is the most valuable marketing out there, and it’s completely free! Understanding this view of customer service will lead a company to go beyond scraping by with just enough effort to avoid a PR nightmare. Interacting with your customers in a meaningful and sincere way and helping them when they need it will ultimately serve to enrich a businesses brand.

Not only is excellent customer service a tool to promote your business’s brand and win the hearts of your customers, it is something that should be valued simply because we are all human beings. When dealing with customers all day, especially when it’s through the phone or from behind a screen, we can all forget the people we are serving are humans and not just an order number. Quality customer service means taking care of the customers, and when we take care of people, we help people grow. We should value our customers because they are part of our community. Here at Surge we do screen printing for schools, local business, student organizations, non-profits, factories and everything in between. All these groups of people fill a vital role in our community. When we take proper care of them through our customer service, we are helping the entire local ecosystem grow together. We want to take care of our customers because it’s beneficial to our entire community.

Pursuing excellence in customer service is key, especially for local businesses. Customer service is not only a common sense approach to business, but enables companies to communicate their brand in an authentic way while taking care of their community. For these reasons, Surge prioritizes customer service above all else. The way in which we interact with our customers is an essential part of our identity. We are passionate about screen printing, but we’re even more passionate about the people behind the shirts. Everyone is part of a community somewhere, a community that is made up of people. No matter what your business is, you have an opportunity to help your community grow through quality customer service.

Come check out our customer service yourself. Email info@surgepromotions.com or come on down to our store to get your custom apparel order started today!

Written by Clayton Gibb