How to Develop Customer Service Promise for Small Business

Small business owners, are you committed to your business? Do you have a customer service promise? Are you fully committed to your company’s service promise?

If you have a customer service promise and understand the importance of it, you are on the right track. But if you don’t have any or don’t know the importance of a service promise, I have bad news for you. Without a service promise, you are hurting your company and doing a disservice to your customers.

Now you would be thinking, what is a customer service promise, and how will that affect my business? In this blog, we will cover full details of customer service promises and how you can benefit from them.

What is customer service promise?

No matter what small or big promises you make to your customers, customer service can amplify your customer experience. If you stay committed to your promises, it will increase your brand reputation. But if you fail to deliver short on even small stuff, it can affect your brand negatively.

A service promise solely focuses on customers, what type of experience they will get from you, and how you will deliver it to them. Customer service promise is your bond.

A customer service promise provides a clear guideline that defines-

• What can customers expect from your business
• How are you going to deliver on your promise
• How customer experience should be delivered by every team

When you consistently offer a great customer experience through even the smallest repetitive interaction, you can create loyal customers. This is how trust is built between you and your customers. When you provide great interaction every time a customer contacts you for help, you can develop faithful customer relations.

Why is a service promise important?

A service promise helps you define your goal for your business and set a standard for your employees. Here are some main benefits of customer service promise:

• Put a clear goal ahead for your business
• Set standards for employees on how to operate
• Set guidelines for delivering a great customer experience
• Inspire a consistent level of good customer service across teams
• Help you to recognize interactions that should be rewarded
• You can easily target and work on a specific goal for better change
• Increase overall brand reputation
• Consistent service promise develops customer loyalty

Transparent businesses that stand firm on their service promise to attract new customers easily and provide a greater customer experience than their competitors. Thus increasing sales and higher customer satisfaction.

How to develop customer service promise for your business?

Most small business owners ignore service promises while starting their business. But it is essential to build the foundation of service before building your teams. When you have a clear service promise statement and guide, you can comfortably implement it across your organization.

When you break promises even the small ones can affect your customer relations. Customer trust and your brand reputation can be damaged along the way. When you make a promise to your customers, you have to keep them or don’t make fake promises.

A half-truth is still a lie and there is no excuse for broken promises. A service promise is still a promise, and it should not be taken lightly. 

To develop a service promise, ask yourself these questions first:

• What are you offering to your customers?
• How are you going to deliver that?
• In which ways your team is going to offer service to customers?
• How are you going to differentiate your service from your competitors?
• Why should your customer choose you other than your competitors?

Answer to these questions will give you a clear understanding, and you can start developing your customer service promise foundation.

To develop an effective service promise, ensure your service promise is understandable by your teams and your customers. There are no definitive rules for service promises. It varies from industry to industry and business to business.

The above questions are the first step to understanding your business approach and what customer experience you want to offer with your product or service. Today’s customers treat every product purchase as new connections like they have with family & friends. They want more than a product; they want to feel a connection with your brand. 

Customers want a service experience that is fulfilling and personalized. They want you to improve their lives through your products or customer service experience. The only way you can do that is by becoming more human and personal, using customer service experience to keep your service promise.

How do you manage service promises?

To keep your service promises, you must communicate clearly between your teams and your business. 

But how can you manage your business service promises without increasing customer expectations? Follow these steps to maintain bureaucracy around the company and deliver service promises as they are promised to your customers —

Implement service promise on your brand voice

Brand voice is your brand’s tone across all mediums, from your website copy to our brochure and social media. How you present your brands in front of the world matters. 

Implement your service promise in your brand voice. If you make it clear from the start, customers will know what to expect from you. When your service promise is aligned with your brand voice, you don’t have to feel the pressure of high customer expectations.

Have a clear tone of service

Customer tone of service is how you communicate with your customer. It helps you have a positive communication voice from your support team and across other customer service channels. You should align your tone of voice with your customer service promises.

Train your employees on service promise

Having your team’s clear understanding of your service promise is crucial. The best way to do this, having a dedicated training program on brand voice, customer tone of voice, and customer service promises. 

Train your people on your service promise, and coach them on how they can implement service promise into their day-to-day work and interaction with customers. Support them along the way.

Tell them to collect feedback from customers after every interaction. Build a system to recognize repetitive interactions that deliver continuous great customer service and reward those team members doing the hard work.

Create direct guidelines and easy-to-access resources

Small or big does not matter; if you have to manage people in your business, write clear and direct guidelines on service promises for everyone. You can add other aspects but make it understandable for every team.

You can also offer an in-house resource where employees can search for related information, ask questions, and learn more about your business service promise. This will reduce all kinds of back and forth and save time for you.

What is a brand promise examples?

Do you ever wonder what is the common aspects of Amazon, McDonald’s, Nike, or Coca-Cola? It is their commitment to their service promise.

What are these promises? Let’s have a look for inspiration!

Amazon: deliver the broadest selection of products and services at the lowest prices with exceptional customer experience

Amazon is among the best e-commerce brands for its vast selections, fast delivery, and great customer service. They are obsessed with customer service and aim to deliver an excellent customer experience every time consumers interact with them.

Nike: “To bring inspiration and innovation to every athlete* in the world.”

If you have a human body, then you are an athlete. That’s what Nike believes, and they carry the same value with their service promise. Nike did not mention their product in the service promise statement but clearly stated what they think and how they will help you.

McDonald’s: “Our mission is to make delicious feel-good moments easy for everyone.”

Same as Nike, McDonald’s uses its service promise to connect with you on a personal level without mentioning its products. They are not selling foods; they are creating moments for their customers.

Coca-Cola: “to refresh the world in mind, body, and spirit, and inspire moments of optimism; to create value and make a difference.”

Do you see a common thing between famous brands? How they are not focusing on products but easily communicating with people with understandable service promises. Coca-Cola is staying true to its service promise through its content and brand voice. You will meet the same service promise every time you interact with them through channels. Coca-Cola is not just a drink company; it’s a lifestyle brand.

Moving forward

A service promise is fundamental to any business operation to win an exceptional customer experience. Craft your service promise meticulously and train your employees on how to implement it through their daily customer interaction.

Make sure, you truly believe in your service promise and stand firm on delivering it to your customers daily. Faithful customer relations require you to tell the customer service truth and nothing but the truth only. It is a guarantee that customers have come to expect and makes them loyal to your brand.