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From Scowl to Smile: 5 Practical Steps to Instill Exceptional Customer Service Whether in a restaurant, a retail establishment, or the local post office, we have all experienced a decline in customer service. Rarely do smiling, happy employees interact with us anymore. Instead, the person we are dealing with in face-to-face relationships does not even attempt to feign a smile, but rather greets us with a scowl, completely avoids eye contact with us, and grudgingly mutters responses to our requests and questions. When did customer service cease to exist? Why is it suddenly so difficult for employees to show customers some common courtesy along with a little friendliness? Have we ventured so far from the service standards of yesteryear and become so shortsighted that we refuse to treat others as we would want to be treated ourselves? 11 Ways to Get What You Want - Be a Clever Customer! We all want great service, whether we are buying our weekly groceries from a store, or want a billing hitch resolved at our local utilities provider. Whether it's getting our car fixed, or a great meal in a restaurant. So we can holler and complain about how poor customer service and satisfaction has become - or we can do something about it ourselves, when we have those one-to-one opportunities with a real person. Does Your Customer Talk Back To You? What is your customer saying about you? Do you really know? Does your customer really know who you are? Boomerang Customers- What You Might NOT Think Brings Them Back! With all of the calendars and PDA's and lists I make I recently did a really dumb thing. I forgot my best friend's birthday and her anniversary. Both special days are back to back and I forgot both of them. After being friends for twenty years I feel old and stupid! How To Boost Your Bottom Line With Two Little Words I hate to sound like one of those cheesy get-rich-quick commercials, but this week I am going to let you in on a little secret that is so powerful that it will immediately change the way you do business. Whats For Lunch? As an entrepreneur, I'm always intrigued by small businesses, home-based or not, that exceed the expectations of their customers in a big way. Identify Your Silent Customer Service Message With the growing number of people in every business sector, doing business requires creativity and ingenuity. The entrepreneur that understands the importance of thinking differently is the entrepreneur that sees their businesses growing. However, too many business owners are relying on the old ways of doing or packaging their products and services. Whether retail or service oriented, old clichés and techniques no longer work. Learning from Your Employees and Customers Complaints Listening to complaints, whether they're reasonable or not, is a part of every manager's job. Sometimes complaints can be overwhelming. However, by taking them in stride with an open mind, we can learn much from our employees' and customers' feelings about the workplace. Automating Your Customer Support My regular readers will know that one of the things I highly recommend doing with any online business is automating as many of your day to day tasks as possible. Stand Out in Business the Write Way When was the last time you received a handwritten note from a business associate? It may be that it was too long ago for you to remember. On the other hand, if you have gotten one lately, you know exactly who sent it and when. Handwritten notes have become almost extinct in the business world. So if you are looking for ways to stand from the crowd, to be noticed by your colleagues and clients, try putting pen to paper whenever you have the slightest excuse. Customer Service and Call Center Outsourcing, Whats The Buzz? The buzz is all about customer service and call center outsourcing, also known as BPO (Business Process Outsourcing). According to Gartner, the outsourcing market in Europe has grown with over 6%, BPO with 10%. The market for offshore outsourcing (to low wage countries) is growing with a whopping 40% this year! However, the subject of outsourcing is not without controversy. So what's it all about? How to Win the Hearts of Your Customers and Friends Those of us doing business over the internet have to become especially adept at our listening and speaking skills since we don't have the luxury of talking with our customers face to face. It's especially important to give those on the phone extra attention - listening to their voice, because that is the only thing you have to go on, to sense their emotion. You can't observe their body language or their eyes like you can in person. They have the same limitations in listening to us. A great method to use when talking on the phone to come across as being really interested is to raise your eyebrows and smile as you talk. It will give you voice a lift. Try it on one your friends. It really works. It makes you sound very cheerful, etc. The thing is, they can't see you either, so you have to work a bit harder to let them know that you're really with them. They can't see you smile, so they have to hear the warmth of your heart through your voice. If you practice, it'll start to come naturally to you. Dealing with Disgruntled Customers No matter how hard you try, in business you simply can't please everyone. You could have a highly trained customer service squadron and an award-winning product, but still you'd have some buyers who just weren't happy. The bad news is that unhappy customers are more eager to share their experiences than happy ones which could spell disaster for your business. Retail Store U-Scan Machines: Self-Serve or Voluntary Part Time Job? Do many of us realize that we are working an unpaid part time job for the grocery stores and some home appliance stores? We are ringing up our own goods, are not getting any price discount for doing so and are saving these retailers money. 10 Customer Service Quality Statements to Measure up Against It might sound quick and simple, to say how well your business does in satisfying it's customers. Hearing such as:-"We're increasing our turnover by 14% year to date""Our customer complaints are now less than 4% or our transactions"...might sound like music to your ears, but that's just the time you need to be very careful.A regular measurement of where you are as your organisation, not depending on some of the easy-to-fake figures, might just make the difference in how well you are doing now, and into the future.Try these quality statements and set up a mechanism whereby you review them monthly - yes, that's right, monthly. This needs to be thorough and objective. And maybe even the scores made by a cross- section of your people in all areas of your business - then you get objectivity and a true picture of how you are scoring. It is a great activity to score each of these out of 10, make a tracker month by month and each time you review, ask yourself the question:-"What would we need to do to move our score up by 3 points"Do it point by point and then, after you have that 3-point question, work out a monthly action plan, so that step-by-step, you gradually improve. (Note:- If you are too near a score out of 10 to have three points to go - upgrade your statement!).Then and only then will your improvement be sustainable and you can reset the questions over time to a higher standard. Then you truly will be The Best in class!The Quality Statements:- We use a variety of staff to monitor customer service on a regular and consistent basis We know and can clearly state our customer groups We listen to customers about our products and proactively seek to redress issues We notice and congratulate our people and teams when they perform well Senior management are fully and visibly engaged in customer activities Our people enjoy the challenge of changes Our organisation and our people have aligned values Our customers find working with us easy and pleasurable We know how our people feel about working here and always respond to make it better We have teams and individuals who can respond quickly to changes circumstances, whatever they are Keep a track of these - visually represent it somewhere very publicly for your people. Involve many of your them in monitoring, finding solutions and taking accountability for change, where needed and your business, your people and you will thrive.One final point. Starting is good, being able to demonstrate your success in 12 months is another thing - as is still doing this review at that time. How to Transform Your Voicemail into an Effective Medium of Communication "Hi this is Randy. Leave me a message after the beep and I'll get back to you as soon as possible. Thanks and have a great day." When the Customer Demands: Give a Discount or Lose the Order Periodically every sales person encounters the customer who refuses to buy unless they receive a discount. Sometimes this is driven by the organization's culture or the buyer wanting to look good to their boss and sometimes it is simply the mindset of the individual buyer them self. To some people price satisfaction and their perception of value, is not about the actual amount paid as much as it is their sense that they have negotiated the price down from a higher starting point, thereby obtaining a "better deal." A case in point is the retail consumer who will only buy items that are "on sale," even if the sale price is really no lower than the everyday price at a competitor. Client Service as a Competitive Advantage As someone who has been heavily involved facilitating strategic planning processes with organizations during the last 15+ years, I often find it somewhat amusing how people answer the questions I pose. Profit from a Customer Service Recovery Program A client recently said to me: "Most days things seem to run smoothly; but whenever we have a customer complaint, we seem to collapse. Where are we going wrong?" Treating the Customer Dissatisfaction Epidemic: How to Go Beyond Simply Masking the Symptoms Corporations in every sector are spending more than ever before in an attempt to improve their customer service levels. Every year they pour hundreds of millions of dollars into new systems and training programs that promise them the ability to win customer loyalty. Despite their efforts, however, customer satisfaction results continue to fall. Why aren't these massive efforts paying huge dividends? One would think that by now the organizations that have committed these vast resources would have a large cadre of satisfied, loyal customers, but in most cases just the opposite is true.
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