How to Provide Exceptional Solutions (Not Just
Service) to Your Clients
In 2003, I moved to Little Rock, AR, and I was amazed with how helpful my new
property manager was. If you haven't moved recently, you may have forgotten all
the joy associated with having to arrange to shut off your utilities, phone,
cable, etc. and arrange to have them hooked up at your new location. Then, you
have to deal with mail forwarding, finding new service providers for all aspects
of your life, and then deal with the move itself. When I made a cross-country
move in 1998 from MA to TX, I had the luxury of being able to quit my job and
focus solely on the move and on selling unwanted items. Now, as a solo business
owner, I no longer have that luxury, and the processed caused a meltdown or two.
However, my saving grace was my property manager.. The information and
resources that she had available has greatly decreased the amount of time I'd
need to find this info on my own, and in some cases, she had her own contacts
with some of the companies. For example, upon my decision to rent from her
company and completing the paperwork, she handed me a packet of info to help
with my move. Within that I found contacts for the electric, gas, telephone and
water companies, along with the deposit fees required and installation charges I
could expect to pay. There was a brochure from the cable company with all the
options available from them, along with the pricing of their services. All of
this info was in a great folder from a moving company with moving tips, in
addition to having mail forwarding cards that I could complete and return to my
local post office. I was talking to her about my options for a mover, and she
proceeded to open the Little Rock phone directory and found the name of a moving
company she could recommend, as well as ripping out a discount coupon for them
from the back of the book. When I decided that I wanted to rent a PO Box as a
business address for my business, I called her and discovered the branches of
the USPS that are close to my new home. I can honestly say that I've never had
such a great one-stop shopping experience in my entire life!
And, it didn't end there! While in her office, I noticed that she had bookcases
full of videos and DVDs. The residents of all of the properties owned by the
company could drop by the office and check out videos at no charge. What an
amazing array of resources I had at my disposal! I truly felt I had gotten
exceptional service from this company because of all the resources that my
property manager had at her disposal that provided solutions to the problems I
was having.
The idea of being in the solutions business came to me when I read about an
article in the Arizona Republic regarding a child care facility in Ohio that
offers fresh Starbuck's coffee for the parents when they drop off their children
in the morning, a dry cleaner drop-off service, as well as home-cooked and
healthy meals that parents can take home with them when they pick their kids up.
Now, isn't that a big jump from offering child care services to offering a
solution for really busy parents?
So, how can you be a solutions provider instead of a service provider in your
business?
The first way is to identify ALL of the problems that your clients may have.
If you're not sure what those are, ask them! Your business may not be able to
help solve all of them, but you may be able to help your client with those that
are most pressing. Brainstorming these may cause you to have to think outside
the box and figure out how you might best serve your client. You will probably
discover that you'll need to have a list of tried-and-true reliable service
professionals at your disposal.
If you don't have a list of professionals at hand, there's no time like the
present to create this list. If you can create strategic alliances with
other businesses who can service your client base, by how much might all of your
businesses profit from such an alliance? There's strength in numbers, and truly
the business owners with the biggest Rolodex and the greatest number of contacts
wins!
Your clients are busy -- heck, we're all busy these days. Anything you can do
to save them money, time, or energy will engender their lifelong loyalty to you,
and lifetime referrals! Start providing solutions to your clients, and they'll
become your most vocal referral agents!
(c) 2008 Donna Gunter
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Online Business Resource Queen
(TM) and Online Business Coach Donna Gunter helps independent service
professionals learn how to automate their businesses, leverage their expertise
on the Internet, and get more clients online. To claim your FREE gift,
TurboCharge Your Online Marketing Toolkit, visit her site at
http://www.OnlineBizU.com.
Ask Donna an Internet Marketing question at
http://www.AskDonnaGunter.com. Read about running an online biz at her blog,
http://www.GetMoreClientsOnlineblog.com.
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