10 Customer Service Goals Your Small Business Should Reach For

Small business owners (SMBs) have a major advantage over globally recognized conglomerates. Running a small business allows you to provide more personal and attentive service to your customers.

Below we list 10 customer service goals that any business, no matter the size, can realistically reach for.  

Customer Service Goals for your Small Business

1.) Create a Customer Service Procedure’s Manual

Spend the time to make a procedure’s manual for how you would like your customer service to run. Conduct a training session on the new manual and invite all employees who speak directly with your customers.

In the manual, detail how you want situations handled and tips for handling customer interactions. List out all of the customer service staff by providing their title, contact information and specific responsibilities.  

Having one document with all company expectations will give your team the information needed to deliver excellent customer service. 

2.) Spend Time Organizing Customer Feedback

Send out a memo to your staff to go through their archived emails to find customer feedback. You’re looking for emails from clients that were extremely satisfied and for disgruntled customers as well.

Gather all of this information and organize it into an editable excel spreadsheet (or upload into your CRM if you have one). Be sure to post any testimonials you find on your website and the review sites you’re registered with.

Go over the negative feedback with your staff and spend time discussing what went wrong. Ask your employees to give their opinions on how we could have handled it differently. Get in the habit of discussing customer feedback with your team.

3.) Study Your Customer’s Behavior Online 

Reviewing your customer’s behavior online will give you an inside look into their wants and needs. Providing elite customer service happens when you can anticipate your customer’s wants and needs before they even ask for help.

In our article, 3 Free Ways to (Really) Get to Know Your Customers, we show you how to research your online data by: 

• • Checking Your Website Analytics
• • Reviewing Your Social Media Analytics
• • Contacting Past and Current Customers

4.) Design a 12-Month Client Newsletter

Having a monthly newsletter blasted out to your contact list doesn’t have to be all time-consuming. Once you design a simple newsletter template, you’re ready to schedule your upcoming monthly email blasts at the same time.  

For inspiration on what to write about or how to attract attention from your audience, check out HubSpot’s informative article: 12 of the Best Email Marketing Examples You’ve Ever Seen

When developing your 12 email posts, keep it simple, don’t stress. You’re just committing to a monthly newsletter and in case things get busy down the line, it will be all set up to run automatically. You’ll always have the ability to add announcements or edit content before the next one is sent out.

5.) Make a Plan to Increase Referrals

Increasing customer referrals is all about building relationships. Take the time to reach out to your customers to catch up with them. Let them know of any referral programs you’re offering and ask if they’d consider recommending you to a friend or family member.  

Another way to increase your referrals is meeting new business professionals in your community. Get excited about business networking by realizing that, “Every time you pass out a business card and every time you receive one is a step toward building a fruitful business opportunity. Start thinking of business cards as a form of currency that will mature later down the road.”

Reach either of these customer service goals and you’ll start to see a healthy return on your investment of time.

6.) Enter a Customer Service Competition

At A Courteous Communications, “we enter our virtual receptionists into annual competitions within the telecommunications industry so that we can be in the running to win fantastic awards, but mainly, we enter to keep our skills sharp, modern and within the top tier amongst our competitors.” 

When your customer service is being judged, you’re able to stay on your toes and constantly innovate your operations.

7.) Visit a Top Rated Local Business

Take your staff to a local business that is known for their excellent customer service. See what it’s like to be treated with importance and take notes. Incorporate what you learn into your current customer service practices.

Can’t visit the Ritz Carlton, Michelin star winning restaurant or other high-end competitor in your field? Follow them online and observe how they handle their customer service experience.   

8.) Find and Solve 3 Problems Within Your Business

Right now, doesn’t matter who you are, your business has at least 3 problems that prevents it from doing better. When you put your business under a microscope, you’re able to look over your strengths and weaknesses with a fresh pair of eyes.

Take some time to figure out 3 problems that exist in your customer service department specifically. Brainstorm and develop various strategies to fix these problems. Test out your solutions; see what works and what doesn’t.

9.) Designate Specific Customer Service Tasks to Team 

An ambitious customer service goal would be to build an in-house customer relations team. If your current staff could support more work, divvy up part-time responsibilities to each of them. Have one person take over monitoring your business’s social media activity. Another person can be the contact person to receive any and all customer complaints or testimonials. 

We recommend reading an amazing resource, Why and How to Set Better Goals for Your Support Team. This highly informative article shares great examples of delegating customer service tasks and goals for your Director of Support, Customer Support Manager and Customer Support Representative.

10.) Offer 24 Hour Telephone Customer Service

You have the ability to completely outsource your customer service department to virtual customer service agents. This customer service goal allows you to partake on the various benefits that come along with hiring an answering service.

• • Your business is always available.
• • A simplified ease of access.
• • Custom assistance for your customers.
• • Consistent customer service for your callers.
• • Acquisition of customer feedback.
• • Personal assistance with FAQ’s.
• • Increase in your business’s image.
• • Empathetic and compassionate communication.
• • Enhanced customer tracking services.
• • Ability to offer VIP customer services.

Let Us Help You Achieve These Customer Service Goals!

Shoot us a message to receive a free quote or check out our services and rate packages.

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To get more customer service inspiration read: 5 Successful Business Leaders Give You Their Top Customer Service Tips.