Owning a business in the construction industry is tough. You've got the pressures of money, people, time constraints, keeping that pipeline full of new business and on top of those you want to keep your customers happy. But you've got to do more than just keep your customers happy, you’re going to have to make them fans, and fanatical ones at that!

The first thing to think about is how you are going to really own those customer service opportunities. Never make excuses, be upfront and let your customer know that you genuinely care about them and their issue. If you don’t care, it’s time to learn to start caring about them, they are your business.

Always listen and communicate with your customers. Listening is important, often a customer with a gripe only wants to be heard, so listen and don’t be defensive, instead ask more questions and be sure to use open questions to try to really understand the issues. Problems in a process are the best way to help you improve your business. The best question is “How can I make this right?” most of the time a customer will know what they want and will tell you!

Never say no. No is a negative word and is confrontational. If you don’t want to get your customers’ back up make sure you say yes whenever possible, and even if you want to say no think of another way to say it.

If you’re not the only member of the team that deals with customers you’re going to need to think about how you train them, make sure anyone dealing with customers is knowledgeable so you've got the answers to hand when required. Whatever happens all your team need to make sure your team understand that they've got to care about the customers. If your business cares about their customers, your customers will care about your business. Become friends and make it persoal.

That’s possibly the easy bit, but how can you step it up and take it that bit further? How can you recognise important events in your customers’ lives? Think anniversaries, birthdays, Christmas etc. Can your business become entwined with their lives? Are you asking them to follow you on Facebook and Twitter and are you engaging with their posts? It takes time to do, but this is what you’re going to need to do to beat your competition in the future and this will make your customers the kind of fans that will promote your content (and often inadvertently) to their social circle.