by Timothy D. Brady
A Customer Service Action Plan is a series of activities assigned to each driver and employee which must take place consistently with every customer throughout the course of the load or job. This can include a quality of service survey, follow-up calls to ensure the job or load was completed on time, or a verification call on the time and location of a pick-up or delivery.
Customer service Action Plan Criteria
Here are the criteria to assembling or improving your Customer Service Action Plan:
- Identify your customer: This is part of determining your area of expertise. What is the niche in which you specialize? Who are your primary customers? In other words, who do you haul for? What are the regions or lanes in which you operate hauling their products?
- Be Creative in determining your strategies for fulfilling the wants of your customers. What are some special services that you can provide to your customers, thus enhancing your value to them? What are some unique ideas to set you apart from others doing the same job? Being creative puts you ahead of your competition.
- Actions are the procedures you take to attract and maintain your customers. How are you going to implement your Customer Service Action Plan? Have a chronological list of activities that occur during the job or load and assign these to your team.
- Customer Maintenance: This is your Preventive Maintenance for your customer service. Create a means of tracking each Customer Service Action Plan on every load or job to determine its effectiveness in growing customer confidence in your company. Again, consistency in the application is important to maintain your customer base. This, in turn, develops trusting relationships with each of your customers by providing the highest level of service on each load or job. Let them know how important they are to you and your company.
It’s important to lay the correct groundwork.
- Develop smart plans for dealing with future fuel spikes.
- Know your costs and control them.
- Develop your rates based on your break-even points and future capital needs.
- Make sure you have quality customers and profitable lanes.
- Have a defined Customer Service Action Plan.
- Verify it’s being done consistently, and track its results.
Now you’re beginning to get the picture for the future. Even with the unprecedented upheavals in business over the past couple of years, by paying attention to the details, your company will be ready to take advantage of the opportunities which present themselves as the economy improves. And that’s not painting with too broad a brush.
Timothy Brady ©2020
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