By Nancy Friedman, Founder & President Telephone Doctor Customer Service Training, Customer Service Speaker

How would you rate your businesses customer service? On an A to F scale?

Do you train your employees or do you just wing-it when it comes to customer service?

If employees fail at customer service and are not helpful and knowledgeable, OR are unpleasant, your business not only could lose customers and lose future sales, but you also risk the chance of getting virally slammed on social media.

So, what can business owners and managers do to encourage excellent customer service? Here are five tips that will help up your game and provide customer service that will generate sales and repeat customers:

*    Start some sort of training now! If you have even a small dose of customer service training in place, review it with your employees, often. And if you don’t have a customer service plan, consider bringing in training for your staff. No time to train? Reminders are helpful – “Thank you for your business,” “Thank you for calling” goes a long way, costs nothing, and leaves a positive lasting impression.

*    Meet with your staff at the end of each day. Discuss what went wrong and what went right. Make sure any customer service concerns are addressed immediately and solutions are made so customers are satisfied.

*    Prepare your employees with a “mental” suit of armor. Make sure they’re aware all clients or customers won’t be so nice and some will be difficult. It’s possible employees will be on the front lines of occasional abuse. Warn them in advance and make sure that when those incidents happen your employees will still treat the customer with politeness, friendliness and respect. We all know the customer isn’t always right. But they remain the customer. And they always ‘think’ they are right. That’s the mentality we need to work with.

*    Your employees need to care. While knowledge of a product is important, it’s just as vital that your salespeople show they care and want to help the customer with a purchase. Greet each customer as if they were bringing a million dollars of business to your store.

Remember, your customers don’t care how much you know, until they know how much you care.

*    The most important customer service win: smile! Simple that it is, don’t let your employees greet customers without a smile. A smile leaves a positive, friendly, first impression. True, it is NOT the end to all; however, it sure is better than not smiling.

If you don’t provide excellent customer service and leave a GREAT experience with your customers, your business, large or small, will suffer and lose an opportunity to gain and retain valued customers forever. Simple common sense.

Do you rate your company an “A, B, C, D or an F? Be truthful!