Here’s a great article about providing excellent customer service. I think the most powerful sentence in the article is this one:

“Engage in something far more powerful than a vendor relationship by transitioning to a collaborator.”

World class customer service means providing our customers with excellent solutions that solve a problem – in our case – that means helping them sell products or services or getting their phone to ring or improving their brand or hiring employees, etc.

Let’s be honest, this has not been a hallmark of the newspaper industry. Yes, I think we do a good job building relationships with many of our customers. But those relationships must be focused more than ever on providing our customers with well thought out plans and ideas. We want them to like us, but more importantly, we want them to view us as a business partner that is looking out for their best interests.

Our focus on broad based marketing solutions means we are better poised than ever to provide the type of service described in the article. My responsibility is to make sure we do this effectively.

Read the article on providing excellent customer service now.