Providing great customer service is tough, especially if you are only starting out. On one end you know that you must turn every client into your company’s evangelist, on the other, you pretty much don’t know how.

It is a quite common thing for startups to misidentify the needs of their customers. I have done and seen this mistake done many times. It usually takes the shape of over pleasing or trying to over impress your customers. It seems quite logical that if by doing so you will keep your client happy and coming back. Unfortunately, nothing is further from the truth.

Typical Customer Service Mistakes

There are various forms of over-pleasing but here are the most common ones I identified:

1. Agreeing to everything.

Agreeing to unlimited revisions or a complete project rework might seem like a good thing to do. Naturally, it will make the client happy (and of course, doing the opposite will enrage them, right?) However, in time you may discover that the project simply doesn’t want to end and you are only losing money on it.

This often leads to frustration, delivering half finished work and many other problems that leave a stain on your business relationships.

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Are you making sure that your new business makes a strong first impression on its prospects?

Do you control every way in which potential customers might interact with your company?

The business world is cruel. It’s demanding and ruthless and very rarely gives you a second chance, especially when it comes to first impressions you can make on your prospects.

Your prospects are ruthless too. There is no pleading, no begging or asking for a second chance. If they don’t like you straight away, that’s it. It is very rare that a prospect would change his mind about a company he disliked at a first impression. It can happen but it usually involves a lot of recommendations from friends and family and direct experiences with a product or a result of a service, things you wouldn’t have much impact on anyway.

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