There’s something about human nature that likes a new challenge and to try different things. That’s why we Europeans found America, why the Chinese invented gunpowder and the Arabs invented the decimal system. In business, the spirit of enquiry and discovery can be a major asset, but today I want to look at the downside.

The other side of the discovery gene is the lack of interest in the things that are known, mundane, maybe boring, but also essential. Sometimes the quality of customer service fits into this category. It’s very easy to get bewitched by a new angle like adding new features to our shop or service, but the attending to the quality of our customer interaction can be more important, particularly if we aren’t already getting it right.

My business, Actinic, has formed a partnership with a company called Feefo which solicits consumers for feedback on their online buying experiences. I was chatting to founder Bill Cawley recently and we were discussing what happens when a company whose customer service is poor implements the system. “It improves rapidly,” was Bill’s comment, “because it has to. Often, owners aren’t aware of just how poor their service is perceived to be by their customers.”

Service quality is hard to get right and too often overlooked. Yet many businesses will see more growth from improving their service than from any other source. I’ve seen this in my own business. After we had to make cutbacks, customer service declined. We measure service quarterly and as soon as we saw satisfaction climb above 80%, sales started growing again. We should all ask ourselves, are we more likely to shop again, and recommend a store to our friends if the service is good? Of course we are.

My checklist of what ensures good customer service is as follows:

• Try to get things right in the first place.
• Provide a fast and helpful response to enquiries via all channels.
• Deal with complaints by apologising when you are wrong and putting it right immediately.
• Make sure that you request customer feedback and embrace negative comments as an opportunity to improve.
• Recruit a mystery shopper to do a regular spot check.
• If, or when, you get employees, create a culture in your organisation of respecting and helping customers.

One of my customers grew their business from their front room to £23m in a few years. Talking to founder Steve Hanbury recently, I was reminded of just how committed he is to customer service, and I’m sure that this is a major part of his fantastic success. All successful businesses centre on their customers.

Indeed, it’s often said that “the customer is King”. Unfortunately, this can be meaningless unless it’s turned into action. Instead, why don’t we agree that customer service is Queen? We can all action this by regularly asking a random selection of customers for their view of our service on a ten point scale, and ensuring that the score always remains above 80%.

Author Chris Barling is CEO of ecommerce software supplier, Actinic www.actinic.co.uk.