The Customer Service Tree

Imagine your customers are the branches that support the leaves (revenue), and you company as the trunk of your money tree that supports and supplies the customer branches.

Think of how a tree grows; it starts with one or two little branches. Those branches shoot off and create more branches, and so the process continues until a full-grown tree emerges.

A customer who has a positive experience and tells just one person has helped your tree grow.

That new customer branch may lay dormant and leafless for days, weeks, or years, but it is still a customer branch with potential to grow money-leaves.

It takes a long time for customer branches to grow, but in only an instant the customer branches can be cut off and never grow back. At any company the best way to cut off a customer branch is to provide poor customer service.

An unhappy customer who tells three people about his or her bad experience with you company has snapped off a branch - a branch budding with potential to grow more customer branches, eventually creating more money leaves.

Providing bad customer service is like the company tree taking a garden shears and cutting its own branches off and burning its own money leaves before they have a chance to grow.

If a customer becomes very upset and reports to the Better Business Bureau or posts a bad review online that can be viewed by thousands of potential customers, more than just a couple of twigs have been cut - a giant limb of potential sales has been severed.

By not providing your customer branches adequate support (good customer service), you have not only lost a customer for life, you have ruined your chances with a potential audience who will never consider your product or service as an option.

Stellar customer service isn't just something you should do, it should be looked at as an opportunity to grow your business one money-tree branch at a time.

If exceptional customer service is not a priority make it one. Remember, it doesn't take long for bad customer service to chop a beautiful money tree into a pile of worthless firewood. 

About the Author

Britta Haraldson is National Customer Service Manager at Verlo Mattress Factory Stores LLC. Info: bharaldson@verlo.com or www.verlo.com.