McCleave says web hosts have to fight for their clients
(WEB HOST INDUSTRY REVIEW) – In the first session on Wednesday morning in the marketing and sales track at HostingCon, Elya McCleave, VP of customer care at SoftCom (www.softcom.com), drove the point that customer service is key, and can be supported with a “people first culture.”
McCleave says that if your staff is happy, your customers will be happy.
In her presentation “Customer Satisfaction – The Prime Concern of Your Business”, McCleave emphasized that when you empower your staff they will be motivated to make clients happy. She says that it starts at the top.
“If the managers embrace their clients,” she says, “the staff will follow through.”
If a web hosting provider focuses on its clients, it can be the key to its competitive advantage.
It is important to remember, McCleave says, that customers are the sole source of revenue for any organization, big or small, public or private, private or non-profit.
“We’re not in a state of social media revolution,” according to McCleave. “We’re in a customer service revolution.”
She elaborated on this point by saying that customers are now more than ever providing marketing and sales for your company because they are using social media to refer their friends and family to your brand.
McCleave says the IDIC process of identifying the client, differentiating the client, interacting with the client and customizing the care all amounts to building customer trust.
“Customization showcases the company is listening to its customer base,” she says.
McCleave emphasizes customer trust as the next step in customer loyalty. She says trust is credibility, reliability and intimacy divided by self-orientation.
“If you come across as self-serving, trust is not something you should expect on the customer side,” she says. Every decision should be focused on the customers best interest, according to McCleave.
McCleave says to imagine the customer standing next to you while you talk to your peers or staff to ensure every single decision is based on customer interest.
She says often in web hosting, managers hide from their clients or don’t take the time out of their day to interact with clients because “the message of customer centricity has to start at the top.”
McCleave recommends calling your own service desk to see how easy it is to talk to a supervisor. She says clients should be able to reach a manager, and that managers have to “stop hiding from clients.”
“It’s not an unlimited pool of clients,” she says. “We need to fight for our clients.”
“Great not just good customer service is necessary for business survival,” McCleave says. “Good is not good enough.”
About Nicole Henderson
Nicole Henderson writes full-time for the Web Host Industry Review where she covers daily news and features online, as well as in print. She has a bachelor of journalism from Ryerson University in Toronto, and has been writing for the WHIR since September 2010. You can find her on Twitter @NicoleHenderson.
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