Top Tips from Andrew Bull, Client Services Manager at 4site Consulting.

You’ve probably heard the statistic that it takes twelve positive experiences to overcome the bad impression left behind by a single bad experience. If a customer or client is subjected to bad customer service from your company, it is going to take a lot of work to repair the trust in that relationship; which is why ensuring that you and all of your team are providing excellent customer service is so crucial!

When we found out the feature for this month’s issue we thought, ‘who better to talk on this topic than our Client Services Manager, Andrew Bull?’.  Andrew, (or ‘Andy’) has been part of the 4site family for over 4 years and manages our professional and dedicated Client Services Team.

Since Andy is passionate about delivering excellence and building strong relationships, we asked him to share some of his thoughts and tips on providing excellent customer service, and ensuring strong relationships:

Firstly, what do you consider to be good customer service?

Good communication leads to great customer service, but the basis of that communication must be both honesty and clarity. There is no point promising answers, turnaround times or solutions that are unachievable, even if that does win favour in the short term. This is ultimately setting you up to let people down, which is what will be remembered in the long term. 

If you have a solid and dependable service that you believe in, and a team who believe in it too, then your advice is always authentic and your reputation for this will grow organically. 

How do you keep yourself organised and prioritise appropriately?

Trying to keep organised in my everyday working life can be a full-time job in itself, but having a team that I can depend upon and who echo my customer-centric values affords me the time to review all interactions.

In my opinion every client; big or small, near or far, deserves the same high quality of service that we provide.

Which attribute have you found is the most important when dealing with clients/customers?

From both mine and 4sites’ perspective, the most important attribute to hold when working in a client/customer service role is empathy.

It’s very true to say that, sometimes, safety management requirements place a huge strain on an already busy property professional.  It’s so important to not only understand a clients’ needs, but also to understand their situation and circumstances that have led to their request or enquiry – only then can you create a great bespoke solution for them. 

Indeed, we are constantly adapting and improving our services, and the ideas behind these improvements comes primarily from our understanding of the needs of Property Management Professionals and how they interact with our services.

How do you use technology to support your role?

We are now firmly in the digital age and technology is constantly advancing. 

This is clearly something that the property management industry has embraced – our services are no exception to this.

We provide an effective management web portal facility for people who use our services. 

Importantly, we’ve made it completely free to use so that users of our services are never restricted in their ability to manage risk at their properties.

Our team provide face-to-face web portal training across the country; in fact, in 2019 we pretty much completed a full ‘Land’s End to John O’Groats’ of client visits, traveling the length of the country to train clients on how to make the most of these value-added services.

Final Words

Undeniably, everybody in a company has a part to play in providing great customer service and if your team work well together then you can rely on them to provide the same high-quality service that you would expect to receive personally.

Since it reportedly takes twelve positive experiences to override one bad one, it’s considerably easier on all parties just to make sure that those bad experiences never actually occur in the first place!

Here at 4site, providing a good service that we can be proud of is part of our ethos. As well as having a dedicated Client Services team, we partner the use of technology with traditional forms of communication in order to ensure that everyone receiving the best level of service from us equally and that service is continually evolving with the industry.