You’ve probably heard the phrase, “The customer is king”. But what is great customer service?

It’s one of the first rule of any successful business that you need to provide your customer with good service – especially if you want to grow your client list.

A onetime customer is a good thing, but a return client? Someone who you have worked successfully with and who returns to you with more projects? That is better.

A client who tells people how amazing you are to work with and recommends your services to them? That client is a true treasure.

In this post, we are going to share with you a few tips in order to ensure that you provide your clients with amazing customer service.  Check them out and start turning customers into longtime clients!

1. Always Give 100 Percent During Customer Interactions

It’s been a long day of shooting and you just want to call it a day and go home. You’re dreaming of that rum and coke when you can finally sit down in the comfort of your own home.

You check your e-mail one more time as you get through the front door and…find an e-mail query from one of your customers.

At this point, you are tempted to put off replying or just sending a terse, short reply.

Do not do that.

Remember that all it takes is one bad review where someone says “they don’t care about their customers”, and it could put off other potential customers.

You don’t want to do that so, no matter how tired or busy you are, take the time to make sure you give every client your full attention. Make sure every single one of your interactions with a customer (or potential customer) is not just a good one, but a great one.

2. Know Your Competition And Be Better Than Them

One of the most basic things you can do to ensure that you offer your clients great customer service is to do some basic market research into who your competition is.

Know who the other video production studios in the area are and know exactly what they do and don’t do. Develop a solid marketing strategy to set yourself apart from your competition. Make it clear from the start that you can provide everything that your competitors can and more.

Also, read their reviews on places like Yelp, Facebook and Google. Any negatives?

   

Look at where they dropped the ball and come up with a plan for what you can do better.

3. Provide Easily Accessible Samples Of Your Work

Video is a visual medium and, as a video production company, you need to prove to potential clients that you can produce visually stunning videos.

The best way to show off your work to potential clients would be to have a well – crafted website.

There are two common ways that people look for service providers:

  • The first would be to ask for referrals from people they know.
  • The other would be to turn to Google.

Often times, it’s actually a mix of both. They ask people for referrals, and then they check out the recommended company themselves by looking for their website.

So it’s massively important that you have an online presence and equally important that your online presence be impressive.

Make sure you have samples of your work on your website and that these samples are easy to view. You don’t want to upload clips that do not work or that redirect to the wrong video platform.

4. Communicate Well With Clients

Good communication skills are important for any business, as it helps you get your message across. As the owner of a video production service, you need to be able to clearly communicate three things to a potential client right from the start:

   
  • that you are experienced,
  • that you produce good work (see point on having a portfolio above),
  • that you are the kind of person they want having the responsibility to head their project.

Once you have bagged the project, you still need to constantly and effectively communicate with the client. You need to make sure that you understand what the client wants and that you state expectations clearly.

It is also a good idea to make them part of the planning process and to keep them abreast of the project’s development. Keeping them in the loop will also help them feel that you are truly serious about producing a great piece of work that they will love.

You should also make it a point to ask them for feedback and insight, even throughout the video production process.

What’s this in practical terms? Regularly send them sample clips. Remember that it is easier to tweak a few things on the way to a finished project, than to have to scrap an entire video because the results ultimately did not match the customer’s wants and needs.

5. Don’t Use Jargon

This is connected to effective communication. While it is important to seem like a credible expert in your field, dropping big words and technical terms will just confuse your client.

It’s important that your client understands what you can offer to them and also what you plan to do in practical terms.  If you use too much jargon and they do not know or understand what you are offering, it could create problems on the project. Or, worse, they’ll feel insecure and back out of the deal.

6. Use Social Media Effectively

Social media is an inescapable part of life now and effective social media use is an important skill for any business to have. The simplest and most important use of social media for any new business is to enable the business to gain recognition.

Social media is a good way to network and communicate. Check out a previous post of ours that shows how you can use the three major social media platforms (Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter) to communicate with clients here.

Another way to use social media is as a self-promotional tool. Remember, that social media is active and current. By posting regularly on social media, you will help potential clients see what you’re up to and what you are capable of. It also makes you seem like a dynamic company who a lot of people trust and love working with.

Another potential issue with social media is adding clients to your personal Facebook account. Now, a lot of people naturally use their Facebook accounts for posting personal stuff — what they’ve been up to, that double burger they had at the new joint in town, that big night out they just had with friends last weekend.

That’s all well and good. Trouble is, sometimes adding clients to your personal Facebook account can be risky, especially if you have pressing deadlines. They’re waiting for a video from you and they see you posting they tequila shot photos from the other night.

Not good.

Yes, you’re allowed downtime. Of course. But it can be a real tricky one, especially with a difficult client. If the client feels like you’re being slow, or messing them around, they might pick up on those tequila shot photos and use them an ammunition.

Yeah, it’s rare. But my advice? Don’t add clients to your personal Facebook account. Even if you’re a wedding videographer and they’re your wedding clients.

   

7. Don’t Brag About Being Cheap

While a lot of customers are on a budget, they still like to feel that they’re getting a premium service that’s also good value for their money.

Saying that you’re cheap or that you “offer the lowest prices in town” doesn’t instil confidence. Instead, it’s going to make them wonder:

  • Why are you so cheap?
  • Will you cut corners?
  • Will you produce shoddy work?

In other words, will they get what they pay for? Will low-budget translate to low quality?

A good way to attract the bargain hunters without sounding or using the words ‘cheap’ or ‘low budget’ is to offer a range of differently priced video production packages.

As we’ve said before, packages are easy and attractive for potential clients to digest. They can look at the different packages you offer and decide which fits their budget the best.

In a package, you can put two things together and offer them at a small discount. This can often be more attractive to budget-conscious clients.

8. Provide Personalized And Customized Service

You need to approach each client as an individual person and pay attention to their specific likes and needs.

One way to ensure that you are always providing your clients with good service is to continuously reach out to them for feedback and insight.

Not only will you be able to improve your service in the future, but you are also helping to make them feel heard. By making them feel heard, you build a trust and rapport with them that could encourage them to return to you and also to recommend you to other people.

9. Listen To And Use Feedback

As we have stated before, it is important to get feedback from your clients, and there are many different ways that you can get that feedback. However, gathering feedback from clients serves no real purpose if you do not bother to use that feedback.

Make sure you take the time to review client feedback and identify areas that you need to improve on. Use this feedback to make specific changes to your services.

Remember, the best judges of the quality of your customer service are your customers themselves.  Check in with them, make sure they are happy with you and ask them what would make them happier.

10. Know When To Say “sorry”

Ideally, you are going to be able to communicate so effectively with your client that you can provide them with exactly what they want.

In reality, that is not always what happens. However, making a mistake doesn’t necessarily have to result in losing a customer.

If you have made a mistake: apologize.

Listen to customer complaints and take the opportunity to deal with these complaints quickly. Let your customers know how you’re going to answer their complaints and fix your mistakes.

You could lose a customer or you could regain their trust and have them more willing to give you a second chance.

https://youtube.com/watch?v=BNFP-TK7tqw

11. Produce Good Work

This rule is a no-brainer. If you do not do good work, then a customer is not going to want to use you again.

Neither are they going to recommend you to other people.  This is the first and most important rule of providing amazing customer service. But I’ve added it to the end to make it the most memorable.

If all else fails, producing great work and working your butt off is always a great idea.

Great Customer Service — In Conclusion

Why do you want clients to remember you? You want clients to remember you so that they recommend you to their friends, colleagues and peers.

   

Great customer service creates more clients. The formula goes like this:

Clients + great customer service = more clients. And more awesome clients, at that.

So produce great work, listen to client queries effectively and take action when needed. And don’t be afraid to apologise when it’s necessary.

I hope this article has been helpful. Have you experienced getting new clients directly because of good customer service? Let us know in the comments right below this.