Customer Service is a critical factor for keeping your clients coming back and ensuring theyll refer you to others. Growing your business will be a difficult task at best if you dont perform, meet and exceed your clients expectations, and provide service that creates customers for life.

Customer service is all about the customers perception. You have to do more than just get the job done. You must deliver on all the things (big and small) that affect the relationship with your client. Consider opportunities for improvement in the following areas.

1. Setting/Reviewing Expectations. Do you work with your client to set clear, appropriate, realistic expectations that you can always meet or exceed? Are you clear about the responsibilities (both yours and the clients), timelines, and expectations of results? Are you then willing to go back and review these expectations with the client at key points along the way?

2. Communication. Do you have mechanisms in place to ensure youre communicating with clients at every stage of the engagement, from the sales process through to completion of the project? Being clear about where youre at, whats been completed, whats coming up next, whos responsible, what results you can expect, etc.? Has the client ever had to ask you for these things?

3. Organization. Are you organized? Punctual? Reliable? When you show up to work with your clients, have you done the work and are you prepared to make them feel comfortable and taken care of? Even though youve done it hundreds, maybe thousands of times before, do you take the time to organize and prepare to make it the best client experience possible?

4. Committing to the Little Things. Dont ever dismiss the power of all the little things. Together they can make all the difference and really separate you from the competition. Returning calls and emails in a timely manner. Providing useful information to folks on a regular basis. Showing appreciation for your clients through things like thank you notes, exclusive client-only briefings, and open house, etc.

Clearly these are not the only relevant areas for creating great customer service. Im sure you can think of more. But, pick just one of these areas and create an action plan to improve it in your business today. Make a commitment to continuously improve the level of service youre providing and see how it pays off. When youve done it, pick another area and work on it.

(c) - Kevin Dervin, KPD Marketing

Kevin P. Dervin

Kevin Dervin is the founder of KPD Marketing in Kansas City and creator of the ABCD Growth Marketing System. His focus is on helping small, service-based businesses who would like to grow to the next level, but struggle with how to consistently attract more clients.

"I've found that most service providers love what they do and are very happy with the clients they have," says Kevin. "But, if they don't know how to keep going out and getting more of those clients, then they don't get to focus as much time as they like doing what they love."

Kevin helps these service businesses put in place their very own Marketing and Sales System to consistently generate high-quality leads, convert them into more clients, and increase profits.

To learn more, check out each of his web sites and see what information he's sharing. There are lots of freebies and other marketing resources that you can put to use immediately to start taking your business to the next level.