Rules for Bootstrappers (Part 5)

By Greg Gianforte, Guest Author

With so much of the world becoming standardized and interchangeable, there is little to differentiate your business from a legion of other companies. Except, that is, the special effort of backup support you provide to all your customers.In particular, this means the kind of service they remember you provided, which is the main reason they keep coming to you for more products and services. A high level of customer service is still relatively rare in business, so this is one of the core ways a bootstrapped business can stand out from the rest. Here are 12 ways a bootstrapper can keep customers happy:

• Tackle problems very quickly
• Keep your word
• Ignore the 2-3% of humanity who are simply impossible
• Ingrain the process of listening to customers from day one
• Become a trusted adviser and provide proactive service
• Learn to manage expectations
• Set up a survey to monitor customer satisfaction
• Acknowledge feedback
• Monitor your customers’ use of your product
• Ask your customers to write down what they like about doing business with you
• Treasure your earliest customers
• Inaugurate a regular customer event

How do you keep customer service at the top of your mind for your company?

This segment is part 5 in the series : Rules for Bootstrappers
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