Starry Nights has been growing beyond my wildest expectations. I certainly don't want to jinx it by talking about it too much, but our fortune has been amazing so far! We must be doing something right! We're getting referrals from previous clients and phone calls out of the clear blue sky from people asking for catering and cakes. I have no idea where all these people are coming from, but it is great to think about how many people we've been able to work for.

When I look at the business and what we offer, I know our food is good and our clients really seem to like it, but I also think our growing success has to do with high quality customer service. This is such a simple concept to understand and relatively easy to follow through with, but apparently not every business does it. For me, great customer service is all based on a detailed tracking system of communication with clients (keeping a detailed log) and following up on a consistent and regular basis. That, combined with delivering things when I say I'm going to, and a maximum of 24 hour response time for emails and phone calls.

I have slipped up on this a couple times, and paid for it by losing the clients. Each time was a hard lesson to learn, but it simply reinforced for me what I need to do as a business owner to keep clients happy. I would say that providing quality customer service isn't really hard, it's just time-consuming, and maybe that's why other business let this slide. It takes a lot of dedication to keep following up with people who ignore me or don't respond, but it's definitely worth it when someone does thank me for checking in.