One of the biggest mistakes a company can make is assuming their customer experience is already at a high standard. A lack of focus on delivering service excellence is a major reason why many businesses lose sales and, ultimately, fail to build a strong reputation.

In Australia, customer service standards are often just average, and many misunderstand what it truly means to deliver service excellence. This gap can lead to poor customer experiences and, in turn, lost opportunities to develop long-term customer loyalty and a #1Reputation.

The Inconvenient Truth

When the market slows down, the reality of poor customer service is always exposed. Companies who prioritise their reputation and know that the customer is no.1 ensure their service standards are consistently high. They test and retest the service quality of their frontline teams, never leaving something as critical as customer experience to chance.

On the other hand, average businesses often leave their customer service standards in the hands of their team without proper oversight. When sales drop due to poor service, the quick fix is to lower prices to bring customers back. However, those who build a #1Reputation rarely need to lower their prices—just look at Apple. They constantly innovate their customer experience processes to exceed market expectations. When your customer experience is exceptional, it’s not about price; it’s about value.

The Simple Solution

Improving your customer experience and service excellence doesn’t have to be complicated—it just requires time and effort. By mastering sales conversion, you can immediately impact your revenue and profit margins. Many businesses don’t even measure conversion rates properly, relying on guesswork instead of real data. But knowing the numbers behind your performance is vital for understanding if your team is truly delivering the best customer experience.

Conversion rates in B2B are influenced by multiple touchpoints: from the quality of your initial interactions and how well your team understands client needs, to the tailored solutions you provide and the strength of your follow-up communication. Improving even a small part of this process can have a significant impact. For example, increasing your conversion rate from 10% to 15% can grow your revenue by 50%. Even a small improvement can lead to a significant sales increase. The solution? Train your team in service excellence and keep raising the bar for customer experience.

Everything Speaks

The smallest details can make the biggest difference in customer experience. In retail, for example, a tidy store, an authentic greeting, eye contact, and genuine purpose in helping customers—all of these contribute to building a #1Reputation. And, most importantly, showing gratitude. Every customer interaction should end with a sincere “thank you,” whether they make a purchase or not.

It’s essential to regularly assess your company from an outside perspective. Often, you are too close to your own operations to see where improvements can be made. Engaging a specialist to evaluate the atmosphere of your business can offer valuable insights.

Reputation is Everything

Running a business is undoubtedly a challenge, but there’s no excuse for not delivering an outstanding customer experience. It doesn’t cost anything extra to be respectful, show appreciation, and provide service excellence—but the payoff is enormous. Building a #1Reputation around exceptional client experience is what will keep your clients loyal, even in tough market conditions.