If you run a business of any size, customer service is a key component of your success. Unfortunately, most businesses are good at paying lip service to customer service, but come up short when it comes to actual delivery. Think about most of the customer service experiences you’ve had yourself when dealing with other companies.

Sometimes you get lucky and have a genuinely good experience, but is that the norm? It isn’t for most people. You either get the guy who says his name is Bob but has an accent so thick you can barely understand him, and who isn’t actually empowered to fix anything, or you get customer service agents who are professional, but sound entirely wooden. They sound like they don’t really care and are just marching through a script.

Here’s a secret: They probably are marching through a script. Managers listen to their customer service employees calls, and they’ll actually get fired if they deviate from the script.

This represents a golden opportunity for you, as a business owner. If you can get your customer service right, you can really make yourself stand apart from the crowd. Here’s all you have to do in three simple steps:

1) Empower your employees – When a customer calls, it’s not to say hi. It’s because something went wrong with the product they bought from you. They don’t want to have to escalate up the food chain three or four times before they get their issue fixed. They want to make a call and talk to someone who can fix it right then. Make sure your customer service people are empowered to do just that.

2) Personalize the service – Call your customers by name. It’s a small thing, but it makes a big difference.

3) Limit your use of the dreaded “automated operator.” This technology is responsible for more bad corporate reputations than just about anything else. Your customers don’t want to have to spend ten minutes navigating through a complex, multi-tiered menu system before they get a real person on the phone. They want to call and start talking to a live human being. Give them what they want.

If you do these simple things, your reputation with your customers will soar.