How Your Personal Network Improves Your Customer Service

One of the most overlooked components of offering legendary customer service is the strength of your network.

I don’t mean your computer network -- I mean your personal network. I mean your ability to reach out to co-workers, vendors, and other customers when you need their assistance in coming through to exceed another customer’s needs.

You may need the assistance of your vendor’s sales representative in expediting a customer’s order or fulfilling a special request. If you have a strong relationship with that rep, she may be more willing to reach out and help you. Especially, if, in building that relationship, you’ve done her one or more favors first.

The same is true of your co-workers. You may need to reach out to someone in another department who may not be as obsessed with customer service as you. But, if you have a strong relationship with him, he’s more likely to set aside his own “to do” list and help you.

This is directly counter to what many time management and “career” experts recommend. They’ll tell you to focus on the task and ignore phone calls and email until your work is done.

Go ahead. Do that. See how far it gets you.

Watch as your co-workers who are better at building relationships get promoted faster than you. No, I’m not talking about kissing up or brown-nosing. I’m talking about developing your skills at networking so that you develop a reputation as someone who not only gets the job done but is a stand out team player as well.

Just as you can’t build a brick house without mortar, you can’t build a successful career without effectively managing relationships. Your network is the mortar, your job responsibilities are the bricks. Just as an inadequate amount of mortar weakens a wall, an inadequate network weakens your ability to be successful. You need to maintain the right proportion of results (tasks) to relationship building in order to succeed, especially in these difficult times.

Of all the books on networking that I’ve read the one that has given me the best return on investment is The Ripple Effect: Maximizing The Power of Relationships For Life & Business by Steve Harper. This book is short on theory and long on actionable tips.

Regards,

Glenn

Relate to me on Twitter. I’m @txglennross.