Valerie Garcia’s Advice: Customer Service as a Business Model

Valarie Garcia  is a true professional.  She’s a speaker, consultant, and encourager and she rocked the Revaluate stage at the National Association of Realtors Conference and shared an amazing presentation. Here are a few take aways that will help you grow your brand’s bottom line.

Your brand is not a logo.  Your Brand is what people talk about behind closed doors.   That talk is a vault filled with revenue from referrals.  The key to the vault, is having a brand people appreciate and want to talk about.

So, How does Valerie Garcia  create a customer care culture? “Build Brand Advocacy.”

Mirror and Match

Communication preferences of buyers and sellers have changed greatly over time. To attract buyers in their 30’s, you wouldn’t put an ad in the yellow pages that says call me.

Different generations have vastly different communication styles.  “call me” on your marketing will only appeal to those people that like to talk on the phone – alienating GenZ, Millennial and most GenX buyers and sellers.  Your marketing and communication strategies must mirror your intended audience and their preferred method of communication – not yours.

Play by their rules, and you will win more business and improve your relationship with your clients.

Deliver and Delight

It’s hard to grow a customer care business without a delightful service experience.

As an example, Amazon wins accolades and is regarded very highly due to the value they provide: immediate simple order and delivery.  50% of households in the US now pay for Amazon Prime. Why?  They removed barriers like “driving to the store” or “entering payment information” and “paying for shipping” …. they drastically made shopping easier than it was.

If you remove barriers and make life simple for your clients you will win accolades, appreciation and referrals from your clients.  That strategy lead Jeff Bezos to become the wealthiest man in America – so it may be a good blueprint for you.  So what barriers can you remove for your clients?

Customer Care Focus Tips

3 ways to implement customer service into your business:

1)Narrate the process – Show and tell your clients how the process works and build trust.

2)Don’t Just Deliver, Delight – Go out of your way to make it work.

3)Stop asking for testimonials – Instead, throughout the process, ask “How am I doing” or “Could I get some feedback from you”

The ROI of Care

A customer care focused business model means that you are not going out of your way for just for that one client, but for the good of the brand – so you can generate more business as referrals.  Think of it as an investment in marketing or advertising –

With huge ROI.