|
|
| Customer Service Information |
|
|
|
|
Free Ideas & Best Practices Featuring: How to Deliver Exceptional Customer Service
Having been in business a number of years, I'm amazed at the number of people who don't have the slightest idea of what customer service is. Customer service is not a way of doing things ? it's an attitude. I always love it when company's send their people to seminars to learn about customer service. All the seminars will discuss the customer's needs and expectations and the orator will package these ideas as new and cutting edge when in fact these very ideas were in practice over 30 years ago! Somewhere along the line, we forgot the customer in favor of the bottom line. Some of this may also be attributed to different mind sets over time and how people tend to treat one another. Let me wax poetic here a moment. When was the last time you could go to a gas station and have an attendant in a white shirt and tie wait on you, check your oil, clean your windows, and fill your tires just as a way of saying thanks for your patronage? More than likely the station you went to had an attendant who's appearance was disheveled, wearing more jewelry than you own, and here you are passing money through a bullet-proof panel! It is said that Doctor's make the worst patients, well my friend I'm here to tell you that Customer Service people make the worst consumers! With all the customer service people I've known over the years from both sides of the fence there's a real lack of wanting to "champion" the cause of the customer. Few people posses that trait and those that do don't last long as they're viewed as oddities and pushed out in favor of the group consensus. On the other hand, I have also met customers who no matter what approach you used they were bound and determined to make your life miserable. These people make the "fight" personal and will never be satisfied regardless of what you do. Delivering great customer service is easy! We just need to get back to the basics that were laid down decades before ? what we'll call the tried and true methods. How do you deliver great customer service? 1.) Smile on the phone. This simple act will set the tone for the entire conversation. 2.) How may I help you? You're asking their permission to assist them. 3.) Use a proper salutation when talking to a customer unless permission is given otherwise, i.e.: Mrs., Mr., Ms., Sir, etc. 4.) Listen to their concerns. No one likes to be ignored. Everyone wants to know that not only are they being heard but that they're being understood as well. 5.) Repeat back to the customer what it is you heard them say. 6.) Be genuine. A lack of sincerity comes across easier than you think. 7.) Care for your customer. If you think your customer needs you, you won't be in business long. This means what it says ? too many times I've been in meetings where this was paid lip service and its importance downplayed. 8.) Put yourself in your customers shoes ? What are their concerns? Are they legitimate concerns? Do you have a plan to assist them? 9.) Customers are looking to you to help them put to rest any fears, doubts, or apprehension they may have regarding a recommended repair, service, etc., do you posses the knowledge or skill to assist them? Often time people will try to guess at an answer rather than appear less knowledgeable when in all actuality the customer would prefer honesty. 10.) Be honest and sincere in your deliberations with a customer. This one simple act will be welcomed like a breath of fresh air. You have got to know that by the time a customer has reached you they are upset and feel that they've been getting the runaround or have been lied to. 11.) Never promise the customer anything you can't deliver. That goes equally for a follow up phone call. If you tell your customer you will call ? do it! Even if it's to tell them you have nothing to report. I don't have enough fingers to count the number of times a customer was surprised to get a return phone call. 12.) Never forget what it's like to be a customer! We are all customers in one way or another and deserve the same respect we demand from others. By doing these things you will inspire a customer base that's loyal and will return to you again and again. These customers will also provide the best free advertising imaginable ? word of mouth! By the same token one bad customer recommendation can cost you a large number of potential sales by the time they're done spreading around how they were treated. Additionally, today's consumer has the advantage of the internet to not only entertain but to educate them as well. This is not rocket science just basic common sense and treating people the way you would like to be treated. Somewhere along the line, we lost this concept, and along with that, revenue, repeat business, our initial customer base and free advertising. If your customer genuinely feels wanted and appreciated, you have succeeded in delivering exceptional customer service and you will have set in motion a winning formula that will guarantee your success! Chas Brothers is a Home Based Business Owner, Motivational Writer, and an Independent SFI Marketing Representative and may be reached at; http://work-from-home-make-extra-income.com , http://work-from-home-exchange.com or brothec@msn.com
MORE RESOURCES:
Customer-Service - Google News |
|
|
|
RELATED ARTICLES
5 Golden Online/Offline Business Rules To LIVE Or DIE By Whether online or off, if you plan on running or maintaining any type of credibility within your business, there are some guidelines that are safe to say any existing or potential customer expects if they are to do immediate or future business with you. What Every Employee Should Know About Putting Positive Phrases Into Customer Service If you were a customer on the telephone with a question or complaint and were ready to make big purchase, which of the following phrases by this employee would make you feel welcome and want to complete your transaction? Which would drive you away? Aint We Wonderful! It may come as a surprise to you to discover that customers don't buy your products or services because they feel that you have a right to make a profit. In other words, their motive for doing business with you is not to help you buy the latest Jaguar or put your children through college. You think this is a joke? Recent research shows that something like 60% of businesspeople place more importance on what they will get from a transaction than on what their customers will benefit. Your Career Plan--Think Like A CEO You've been going 6-to-late; exhausted by running the supersonic treadmill of life and wish you had a different job. But you can't because you have no time and you're left spent at the end of every day. Conversely, you're gut tells you that everything would be different if you could only find the right career match. You could stop hitting the snooze button every morning and get back into enjoying the game of life. Whats Love Got To Do With It? Customer Loyalty, we all want it. Don't we? CRM = Customers (dont) Really Matter CRM was supposed to bring companies closer to their clients. The basic idea was to; find out what a client wants and needs, give it to them, and get them to be your client for life. Should I Have My Company Mystery Shopped? I wish I had a nickel for every time someone said to me, "Oh, you do Mystery Shopping; I always wanted to do that!" I think most people do find the thought of posing as a customer and reporting back on how they were treated, rather intriguing. But there is a lot more to it that skulking around in a trench coat and spy glass! Caring for Your Customers You probably think I am going to say something like, "The customer is always right." Right?? Wrong. How To Use Your Current Customers Jay instructed a customer of his to offer a rare coin collection to new customers for just $19. He was actually losing a couple of dollar on every sale! But .... of the 50,000 people who bought the coin collection for $19, nearly 10,000 come back and bought. The History of CRM -- Moving Beyond the Customer Database Customer Relationship Management (CRM) is one of those magnificent concepts that swept the business world in the 1990's with the promise of forever changing the way businesses small and large interacted with their customer bases. In the short term, however, it proved to be an unwieldy process that was better in theory than in practice for a variety of reasons. First among these was that it was simply so difficult and expensive to track and keep the high volume of records needed accurately and constantly update them. 7 Bits Of Critical Information You Cant Afford NOT To Know About Your Customers If you think customer relationship management is just a piece of software, you're dead wrong. Customer relationship management is about understanding your customers. It's about really knowing them as individuals, knowing what they mean to your business, and most of all, knowing what you need to do to keep their business. Sorry, No Customer Service After 4:00 P.M. A few months ago, I wrote about ingenious styles of customer service that every business should know about, mostly because their employees were inflicting them on their customers. Losing Angry Customers This article offers five ways to help you deal with angry customers. While the goal of all businesses is to have only happy customers, we also have to be realistic and realize sometimes we are going to anger a customer. Isn't it best to know in advance how to deal with an angry one, of course it is. Read on?.. Leverage Customer Capital First If you're still dreaming about raising outside capital for your business before you have any paying customers, I've got a nice big bucket of ice water to throw on you. Wake up! The cold reality is that investors aren't interested in your business idea unless you can demonstrate that you've got customers who are actually willing to buy. Before you try raising outside capital, you should focus on building your Customer Capital. What Every Manager Should Know About How to Prevent Customer Service Conflicts There are five techniques that have been proven to be effective in resolving, minimizing, and preventing conflicts. And by conflicts I am referring to any of the following that may take place between two or more people: misunderstanding, miscommunications, arguments, disagreements, mixed messages, fighting, etc. 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! Have You Hugged a Customer Today? It all started a couple of weeks ago when a friend asked me if I could scan and print some of her slides. No problem, I said. Passing the After-Sales Test Some time ago a major UK food retailer decided to branch out into non-foods. Well, they all do it now, but in those days it was unheard of. Alongside the fruit and vegetables, meat and tinned foods they sold refrigerators that they had purchased at very low cost from an eastern European company (these were the days when East and West Europe rarely traded with each other). These fridges were very cheap ? and they worked! The retailer passed on much of this low cost to grateful customers who purchased them in great numbers. What the retailer didn't consider was that fridges ? unlike tins of beans ? occasionally need spare parts. They sometimes breakdown or are damaged. What the retailer forgot was AFTER SALES. It was entirely understandable the customers would make the assumption that the retailer would have this in hand. Trouble is, they didn't. The parts - and the engineers who knew who to fit them - were in Poland. So, to many customers, what seemed like a bargain turned out to be a problem. This retailer is now very successfully selling non-food goods alongside food products and I am sure they did the decent thing by refunding their disgruntled fridge customers of many years ago. Not all companies are so good with their customers. Some will sell products as a one-off transaction and will not be interested in what happens from the moment the product has been sold. "We don't do repairs and we don't sell spare parts. Contact the manufacturer." This is not a lot of good if you live in the U.S. and the manufacturer is in Shanghai, for example. Of course, some products and are not designed to be repaired or refurbished. The manufacturers simply expect them to be thrown away at the end of their life, even if that life is relatively short. An example is the microwave oven. Who fixes yours? Nobody, I suspect. They are usually repairable, but rarely is one ever repaired. No, they just end up in landfill alongside many other goods that are also thrown away rather than "made good". No wonder many countries around the world are introducing legislation to limit the extent to which such goods can be tossed away so casually. So, next time you are considering a purchase, especially the purchase of an expensive product or a mechanical product, consider the following tests: 1. Is it built to last? 2. Does it come with a guarantee? 3. Is there evidence of the product's durability? 4. Is it designed to be repaired? 5. Are spare parts available? Remember also, that repair is better for the environment than replacement. Of course, old products do need to be replaced eventually, but why replace prematurely just because you have purchased a product that failed the tests above? One group of products that pass these tests with flying colors is Insect-o-Cutor Fly Killers. Have a look at www.flykiller.net and you will see them there. Let's put them to the above tests: 1. Insectocutor Fly Killers are made of steel. Their solid construction is one of their best selling points. 2. They come with a 5-year guarantee 3. Go to any restaurant or commercial kitchen and you will see Insectocutor fly killers that have been there for 20 years ? and still going strong! 4. Insectocutor fly killers are constructed in a logical way making repairs straightforward. Insectocutor also provides support for repairs. 5. Insect-o-Cutor sells a range of spare parts for all of their fly killers ? even for models that are no longer in production. And their best UK distributor, Arkay Hygiene ? at www.eeeee.co.uk - is always happy to provide these spares as well as replacement u.v. lamps and glueboards After sales is just as much about the customer as it is about the product. Making a sale is not the end, it is just the beginning. Insect-o-cutor is a good example of a company that demonstrates its concern for it customers through the long-term support offered for its range of products. Just think on that one when you are next down the municipal dump with your broken down microwave! Whatever Happened To Customer Service? Do you remember the last time you went into a shop and the person 'serving' raced over to you, greeted you with a lovely smile, heaps of enthusiasm and said, "Welcome to our store, what can I help you with today?" And then listened attentively to what you had to say? 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?
|
| home | site map |
| © 2005 |
