Keeping Your Customers with Optimized Efficiency

Technology continues to close the gap between what is needed and what is possible to a greater degree with each passing day. It's essentially leveled the playing field, allowing organizations both large and small to compete on even ground, regardless of how much money they can spend to get there. As a result, one of the most important factors to success in the apparel manufacturing industry has increasingly less to do with the products you make or how well you make them. It has to do with the level of customer service that you can provide to your customers.

Make no mistake: B2B customer service has officially become THE key to success in the modern environment. It's one of the last great driving forces that you have complete control over. Not only that, but it's a perfect way to separate yourself from the competition in a truly meaningful and organic way. Great customer service in the apparel manufacturing industry brings with it a few key advantages that cannot be ignored.

The Problem With NOT Having Superior Customer Service

Losing customers can always be costly, but it's especially so when you're talking about a B2B environment. If a company cannot provide accurate, relevant data to its customers, it slowly begins to lose credibility - particularly if that information is necessary to respond to a customer request. Soon one lost customer becomes two, which becomes four and beyond.

A now slightly aged, but still poignant, report from Frederick Reichheld of Bain & Company postulates that an increase in customer retention by just 5% can result in a 25-95% increase in profits. Losing customers can initiate a slide in the opposite direction.

Luckily, this is a problem that you can completely head off at the pass by taking a few key steps.

Reliability Breeds Trust

One of the core tenants of solid B2B customer service in the apparel manufacturing industry rests on a foundation of trust. If you don't know where a particular product is at any given time (or at every point in time, for that matter), how can you "promise" that this product will be delivered on time? How do you know that you've mitigated potential risk and will avoid certain issues that may cause delay? How can you guarantee much of anything at all, really?

Making deliveries on time generates reliability, which in turn gives birth to trust. If you can't make promises and keep them, rest assured that the customer will quickly find someone who can.

Flexibility Generates Dependency

In a lot of ways, great customer service in the apparel manufacturing industry is all about solving problems - not for you, but for your clients. Maybe their current provider isn't processing fast enough, or takes too long to get orders started in the first place. Companies are working with you because they have their own unique problems that, in theory, only you can solve.

By being responsive and understanding that no two companies are created in quite the same way, you open yourself up to the type of flexibility that they need to address these issues head on. You give the customer the peace of mind that only comes with knowing they are in good hands, which in turn yields one of the most important benefits of all:

You're creating the type of service that only you can provide. If you were removed from the equation, it would create a whole new problem for the customer - namely that they no longer have you to rely on. This is the single best problem that you can create in the apparel manufacturing industry when it comes to retaining clients - dependency.

One Satisfied Customer Becomes Many

All of this in turn generates new client referral opportunities as a result of the great customer service that your B2B clients are receiving. When customers are satisfied and their expectations are exceeded, they want to tell people about it - end of story. However, the reverse is also true - if you fail to live up to your promises, they'll be more than willing to talk about that, too.

In the end, what you're trying to accomplish with great customer service in the apparel manufacturing industry is to make it truly effortless to do business with you. If you're capable of accomplishing that, congratulations – you’ve created the ideal customer to buoy your business.