From the top down

Thursday, May 27th, 2010

This week, a couple of things caught our eye.

First, we found the blog post “Exceptional Service Starts at the Top-Are You Setting a Positive Standard?” over on the Service Untitled blog.  As the title implies, the post is about how customer service starts at the top, with an organization’s leadership.  Through his or her actions and words,  a leader can set the tone for his/her employees. If a leader is vested in providing good customer service, and acts accordingly, it follows that the company culture will reflect that. Positivity breeds positivity.

Second, we came across an article in the Christian Science Monitor: 7 tactics for good customer service. The article is focused on what the consumer can do to obtain good customer service:

• Record the problem (photos, etc)
• Ask the CSR what he or she would do in the situation
• Take  time/be patient
• Do research
• Clarify complaint before contacting CSR
• Record time on hold
• Don’t settle for an inadequate resolution

This is useful for a customer service provider because if all customers dealt with customer service in this way, problems would be easier to resolve. It also shows that in some areas, customer service has problems, such as in providing adequate response time and resolving problems to the customer’s liking.  Asking the customer to do all the work may result in an unhappy customer. How can you make customer service easier for your customers?

Tags: customer service tips, leadership in customer service
Posted in Customer service, How to improve customer service | Comments Off

Escalate or mitigate?

Tuesday, May 25th, 2010

Since customer service involves human beings, emotions tend to get in the way of the best course of action. If we are angry or upset, we may not deal with customers in the best possible way.  There have been plenty of tales of screaming matches between customers and customer service representatives.  Currently, there is a story making the rounds regarding a restaurant in New York City, an angry chef-owner, and an upset customer. Read Entrepreneur’s take on it here.

When emotions are running high, do you escalate the situation or try to mitigate the situation? The answer will determine how well you are running your customer service. Clearly, mitigating a situation–reducing the negativity, bad emotions after an incident will work the best. This is not always easy to accomplish. As we said before, people can get emotional and perhaps even irrational, and therefore can’t always make the effort to reduce their aggressive or negative behavior.  That is why situations escalate.

How then do you mitigate a situation to defuse the tension and try to correct course? In certain cases, a supervisor or manager will have to step in. Where there is no supervisor or higher-up (if you are small business owner, for instance) you must take a breather. It is important to remember that actions taken in the heat of the moment can have devastating consequences (as the example above illustrated).

Training can be very helpful in this instance, as could stress-reducing strategies.

Escalation is never a good course of action from a customer service perspective. Focusing on mitigating issues will pay in the long run.

Tags: mitigating customer service issues
Posted in Customer service, How to improve customer service | Comments Off

Lessons from a customer service survey

Thursday, May 20th, 2010

MSN Money conducted its fourth annual customer service survey, where it found the top ten companies for service in the United States, and the bottom ten. You can read a recap here.

From the survey, the companies that did best had all or several of the following attributes:

• Providing a positive experience in the store (for retail outlets)
• Having knowledgeable staff
• Fair pricing of products/services
• Providing quality services
• Promotions that make customers feel appreciated (like checking baggage for free on Southwest Airlines)
• No taking customers for granted
• Not penalizing customers excessively with fees and add ons
• Avoiding surprise charges
• Reducing customer’s stress
• Delivering what is advertised

What ties these attributes together is that they are customer-centric, rather than company-centric. When companies forget that they are working with customers, and become too focused on bottom-line concerns, customers notice and complain or even defect. Companies that did poorly on the survey seemed to not practice these “rules” but to do so over the long term.

What are you doing to ensure you customers remain satisfied?

Posted in Customer Satisfaction Programs, Customer service, How to improve customer service, customer loyalty | Comments Off

The two things that will make customer service better

Tuesday, May 18th, 2010

Customer service is about people.  It is about dealing with people’s issues, problems and needs.  It stands to reason that the first thing you must do to make customer service better is to have people to deal with your customers. Robots or phone trees do not understand people. The other is to listen to people.

Two people based things to make your customer service better:

1. Hire the right people

2. Listen to your people (customers, employees)

Not just any person is suited to customer service. Customer service requires many skills and qualities, among them empathy, problem-solving and ability to stay calm under pressure. On the American Express Small Business Blog (an incredibly good resource for small business resources and information), the post “How to Staff Customer Service for an E-commerce Business” gives a great round-up, which is applicable to most types of businesses. For instance, the post says that:

A personable, even-tempered, well-trained and knowledgeable customer service representative can quickly address misunderstandings, investigate possible mistakes, offer appropriate compensation for service failures, answer questions, explain company policies, and more.

The second major thing to make your customer service better is what we spoke about last week:  feedback. Are you aware of your customers think or what they want from you? Having listening mechanisms and feedback channels is essential. An area that is getting increasingly more attention is social media. On Twitter, Facebook, blogs and other media, people are talking about their experiences with various companies.  If you want to know how your customer service is doing, monitor social media mentions of your company.

You also need to know what your employees are thinking. If you don’t properly communicate with your employees chances are good you are not properly communicating with your customers. Perhaps your employees have a better way of doing things…is there a way for them to let you know?

Remember it is always about people!

Tags: Customer service employee requirements, Feedback
Posted in How to improve customer service | Comments Off

You need to know

Thursday, May 13th, 2010

How can you improve your customer service if you don’t know it needs improving? Seems obvious, yet many businesses are oblivious to what their customers think. Very few businesses follow up with customers. And of those that do follow up, even fewer do anything about what they learn.

It is important to get feedback from your customers. To get feedback easily, set up a system. You may want to send questionnaires to your customers (you could do this by phone, email or regular mail). Or you can have an easy way for customers to contact you with feedback (easy to find phone number, point person, email address).

Once you have surveyed your customers, figure out if there are recurring problem areas. If there are, you must address them. To close the loop, make sure you inform your customers that you have made changes due to their input.

Often, feedback goes nowhere. Customers complain or point out a deficiency, only to never see it fixed. This compounds the problem because you are seen to be indifferent to customers needs. But when you are proactive about finding out how your customers feel, and addressing issues immediately, you have shifted the perception and appear to be an organization that takes issues to heart.

What are you currently doing to promote and address feedback?

Tags: feedback in customer service
Posted in Customer service, How to improve customer service | Comments Off

Creating connection

Tuesday, May 11th, 2010

Before you can provide service to your customers,  perhaps you need to understand your customers–who they are, what their needs are, what they seek,  why they are looking to you.  In short, you need to create a bridge to your customers, a connection.

Creating connections is not easy and it requires time. For large companies, with many customers, it is often done through data and not through human interaction. Chances are the airline where you have frequent flier miles, or the credit card company, knows a lot about your usage. Some use this information to tailor programs to your needs. Others simply store this information and don’t look for ways of creating further links.

At smaller businesses with fewer customers it becomes imperative to create connection with you customers. For instance, businesses in the personal care industry (spas, hair salons, etc) generally create a card for each customer, noting preferences, birthdays, and other details that will help them to customize their service.

To create connection you must invest time and do your research. Figure out what you would like to know about your customers, and how this information may help you to IMPROVE your service to them.  It is important to remember that connection works both ways, and you have to provide the customer with a reason to connect to you. Many businesses mine information about their customers so they can sell to them. This is a one-way street and gives the customer no reason to reach out to the business. A two-way street is much better–ask for feedback, reviews, and perhaps the customer will feel listened to, connected.

The buzz word regarding connection is “engagement.”  Valeria Maltoni discusses “How to Connect with Your Customers” in the context of social media on her blog Conversation Agent.  Perhaps the most valuable point is that you must build trust.

What are you doing to create connection?

Tags: Connecting with customers, engagement and customer service
Posted in Customer service | Comments Off

The basic truth about customer service

Thursday, May 6th, 2010

There’s lots written about improving customer service, what makes good customer service, what is bad customer service. There are courses to improve your customer service, and software to make customer service easier. But before you read or buy into any of that, think about this:

The basic purpose of customer service is to ATTRACT and RETAIN customers.

Customer service is about your customers–those you currently have and those who you would like to have.  This is why it is mind boggling that there is any discussing at all about the importance of customer service.

Customer service should be part of the business plan. Anyone who has been to business school knows that business plans deals with threats and opportunities, marketing ideas and budgets. How many business plans consider customer service? Customer service will make or break a business, and yet, it is often not even a consideration in business planning, and is often the target of budget cutbacks.

On WomenEntrepreneur, there is an article entitled Boost Sales With Great Customer Service. Author Pattie Simone writes the following:

If you want a steady stream of business, try being service-obsessed. Take an honest look at what you can do to improve the service you deliver.

Providing  great customer service helps to maintain or increase sales.  Sales are the lifeblood of any business.  So customer service is indeed the most important part of your business. What is your customer service plan?

Posted in General | Comments Off

Customer service is about loyalty

Tuesday, May 4th, 2010

Inc. Magazine recentlyreviewed the book Exceptional Service, Exceptional Profit (AMACOM, $21.95) by Leonardo Inghilleri  and Micah Solomon.  As its title implies, this book links customer service to the bottom line.  The main gist is that customer service wins over customers and creates loyalty. Loyal customers will remain with companies that they like.

Micah Solomon, one of the book’s authors, recently wrote the article: Seven Keys to Building Customer Loyalty for FastCompany magazine.  According to Solomon:

A personal bond with customers lets your company escape the commodity pricing wars and provides you with a powerful new marketing arm: loyal customers who will promote and defend your company online and off–for free.

Clearly, loyalty pays off two ways: in direct sales to the customer but also in “free”  promotion.

Solomon’s seven keys are:

1. Good first interaction
2. Speedy service
3. Personal customer care (no robots)
4. Remember customer’s preferences
5. Anticipate wants/needs
6. Train your team on the proper way to speak to customers
7. Work hard to find suitable customer service employees

Even though going the extra customer service mile may cost more in the short term, the loyalty that it can build will pay off in the long term.

What are your thoughts on building customer loyalty?

Tags: "Exceptional Service, customer loyalty, Exceptional Profit", Leonard Inghilleri, Micah Solomon
Posted in customer loyalty | Comments Off