Customer Service

One would think with all the resources provided by technology that customer service would not be an issue in today's business world. At any given moment, there is survey after survey showing what customers want and the impact when customers don't receive what they want. With outsourcing being rampant, having an organizational culture where excellence is a habit seems to be a no brainer.

Common sense suggests that if I want to keep my job that is based upon a continual stream of customers then it would be extremely beneficial to deliver professional customer service. Unfortunately, customer service still appears to be a significant issue and millions, if not billions, of dollars are being lost on a daily basis because organizations and employees still don't get it. These 7 tips may help you to stem the tide and create a customer service culture where the goal of p...

Customer service complaints are a part of the territory when you deal with the public. There are many reasons why you may receive a complaint; but in the final analysis, the reasons inevitably involve an unreasonable expectation of some sort or some type of miscommunication. Customer service issues can be successfully resolved if you employ the tips outlined in this article, which allows you to stop, look, listen then act with effective consequences.

Stop and let the customer tell you in his or her own words the problem, as they perceive it. Observe the emotions and attitudes being exhibited as well as the environment and surrounding. Actively listen to understand and make the customer feel heard and respected. With these factors included in your mind-set and thinking, you can proceed to act in effectively handling the problem, with the results being a satisfied loyal custo...

It's long been held that trust goes a long way in building strong long term design relationships. Building all your hopes and dreams with one designer could leave you high and dry when they up their rates after you've committed to a job. So how do you go about finding a trustworthy graphic design company?

Word on the street
Some of the hippest young gunslingers are to be found hanging out in the gin palaces and opium dens of the ghetto. To the uninitiated this might seem like a frightening place to look for someone trustworthy to carry out your design brief but perservere and you may get to hear about some secret design meeting going down in the backroom of some crack festooned fleapit. Welcome to the shadowy world of the design behemoths.

Playing the field
With so many unscrupulous designers hawking their shoddy services, it pays the prudent design buyer to play...

You may have read my articles about the size limitations for both UPS and the USPS. What are you to do when these limits are exceeded? Your local The UPS Store location is one option for obtaining a freight quote.

If your package exceeds 165" in length + girth (girth = (width x 2) + (height x 2)), or it exceeds 150 pounds, you will need to ship the item via a freight carrier. The Post Office has even lower limits (70 pounds and 108" in length + girth).

Shippers, such as The UPS Store, have access to several freight vendors. If you call a freight vendor directly, their first question will likely be, "How many rooms of furniture will you be moving"? If you are interested in sending a single item, they will likely refer you to a shipper such as The UPS Store. The reason is that with nearly 5,000 retail outlets throughout the country, a freight carrier can pick up one item at ...

For businesses large and small, their profitability and success depends upon customer retention, customer relationship enhancements and customer acquisition. This is often known as Customer Relationship Management or CRM. CRM is the managing of all business and interactions with customers. The main purpose of Customer Relationship Management is to allow businesses to better manage their customers through the introduction of reliable systems, processes and procedures for interacting with those customers. A good CRM program helps the business acquire customers and service the customers. Good CRM also helps retain good customers, and identify which customers can be given a higher level of service.

CRM is a complex mix of business processes, enterprise strategies and information technologies, which are used to study customers' needs and behaviors to help businesses develop more subs...

Each day there are an unlimited number of phone calls that are placed. That sounds amazing doesn’t it? What is even more amazing is the number of phone calls that go unanswered. Unanswered phone calls can be costly, especially for those who are trying to run a business. To prevent a loss in business profits there are many business owners who use a phone answering service.

Phone answering services are used all around the world. One of the reasons why phone answering services are so popular is because they allow a business to provide their clients with the utmost service. When placing a phone call, the last thing that a customer wants to hear is nothing. In fact, when a customer places a phone call to a business that they regularly use and that call goes unanswered they may become upset. This upset feeling could lead to a customer changing where they do their business. Even...

All businesses, no matter what their type, will receive mail. Bills, payments, invoices, merchandise, letters, and much more are sent from and delivered to businesses all around the world. While sending and receiving mail may seem easy enough it isn’t always, especially for businesses. This is why the development of mail services is important.

Mail services being offered to a business are most commonly being provided by an individual or a company who specializes in offering a healthy connection between businesses and their clients. There are a number of features that could be included in a mail service package. The features being offered will all depend on the individual or company who is offering the mail service. While the features being offered may vary there are a number of features that are commonly found in a mail service.

Professional mail services are likely to...

Receiving phone calls is a part of business. As a business owner you should know this; however, do you know that those phone calls could be having a negative impact on your business? It is hard to imagine how a simple phone call could negatively impact your business, but many businesses don’t just receive one phone call.

Excessive phone calls can be damaging to any business; however, they are most damaging to businesses that have an office setting. This is because when multiple phone calls are received it takes an employee away from something else that they could or should be doing. This decrease in productivity could lead to a large number of business problems.

It may sound ironic that phone calls to a business can be bad, especially when it is clients who are calling. Since these clients are often the sole purpose for a business’s existence it often becomes a no win si...

When a business reaches the point where they can no longer handle all of their customer requests it is likely that an inbound call center will be used. An inbound call center is often made up of a group of individuals who answer phone calls that come into their work station. When a contract is set up between a business and an inbound call center, the call center representatives working there will handle customer calls.

An inbound call center can be used every hour of the day or it can only be used after traditional business hours. Businesses who use an inbound call center all day long are ones that are too busy to handle certain customer phone calls. In addition to taking a call, an inbound call center may schedule appointments, offer technical support or recall information on products, or process sale orders. With a wide number of different services being offered there are a...

Have you ever worked in a business, which had two types of clientele? One, which was their standard locals and one, which was a massive rush clientele during certain nights, such as Friday or Saturday?

Well, recently I interviewed a gentleman going into the restaurant business and sure enough he worked in a restaurant as a manager, which did $800,000 in sales it first year and it was a rather small chain. But each of their steakhouses were across the street from stadiums, you know baseball, football and basketball stadiums.

The local crowd was dismal during the week, hardly anyone there actually, but it is growing now. Yet, after the big events everyone was there as in 2500 people or more and they had to move the tables in 20-30 minutes and it was jammed and packed in. They even had to seriously worry about the fire codes as people just kept jamming themselves in.

Ho...

This week I present 26 little ideas to help you respond to complaints and difficult customers with much more ease….the ABC’s of Customer Recovery.

A ct as if every lost customer’s sales come out of your paycheck.

Believe the best of customers. Don’t make the mistake of assuming most customers are out to simply get something for nothing. The truth is, less than 1% of customers contact companies with ulterior motives in mind.

C ommunicate with diplomacy and tact when you final answer is “no” and when explaining company policy.

D on’t tell a customer she is wrong. Telling a customer they are wrong never makes them want to agree with you. It only pushes them more forcefully into their original position.

E mpathize with unhappy customers and allow this empathy to season your responses.

F ind a way to say “...

Every Customer Service Training Program that I ever attended preached the same old adage- "Put a smile in your voice- Your customers can hear it". Well, in the telephone world, this is not the appropriate direction to give. I have "heard" more smiles that sounded sarcastic and irritated, rather than excited and enthusiastic. But in the world of face to face customer interactions- a smile really is an important behavior to demonstrate. What are some of the other behaviors that your Supervisors should be on the look out for? Here is a list to get you started...

Top 10 Behaviors that ARE NOT desirable:

1. Sighing

2. Shrugging the shoulders

3. Rolling the eyes

4. Shuffling of papers

5. Talking with other employees when there are customers waiting

6. Moving at an excessively slow pace when asked by a customer to do something

7. Slouching in a...

Customer service in the carwash industry is vital to securing your place in the customer's mind so they will spread the word-of-mouth advertising and give you constant referrals. This starts with a very good up beat clean-cut service writer, who will greet the customer and offer them a special carwash package.

A service writer should also make sure that the customer has no questions whatsoever and listens to any special instructions that the customer has or concerns that they might have about the mechanism of the carwash potentially scratching their car or someone from the vacuum area potentially ripping off quarters from their ashtray.

Remember many people saw the 60 Minutes Television Show that showed a carwash employees purposely vacuumed up quarters out of ashtrays and rummaging thru the personal belongings of car owners. There was another 60 Minutes Television Show r...

How can you be of the most service? Letting your customer know about any changes in the product they bought. That means repeated mailings to let the customer know that there is something new for them at your store.

Send a free gift after purchase. Because you’re a nice person? Maybe. The reason I do it, is to create "Buzz". Those discussions around the lunch table the next day. "Do you know what this guy did? He gave me a bunch of stuff for free! Then he sent me a free gift. Whataguy!" That sort of thing. You want to be the topic of conversation the next day. You also create this "Buzz" by being very helpful & making the buying experience Pleasant. Complaining to your customer about competition, or your lack of business isn't the way.

If they bring a product in for service, shouldn't they "trade-up"? Think. If you merely fix the problem the customer has, you don't leave...

One of the most important things in any service business is customer service. Happy customers with a smile on their face are more apt to refer you or business to other potential customers. This is how you develop word-of-mouth advertising and referrals. And that is the best type of new customer you could hope for.

Some people say that referrals are free, but they are not really free because it takes hard work and great customer service to exceed the customer expectations to the point that they have a WOW experience and feel compelled to tell all their friends.

In customized special service businesses like aircraft washing and cleaning or aircraft detailing customer service is vitally important to the ongoing nature and growth of your business. How do you give good service when washing and detailing aircraft?

Well, a perfect wash and a perfect detail is one way. A...

Have you ever been to a car wash fundraiser and when you left you could not see out your streaky windows? Well, so much for quality and customer service. If you are running a car wash fundraiser, as your next nonprofit activity to raise the funds you need to grow your organization and perhaps pay for a very expensive the events that you are also planning then you will need to consider customer service as part of your car wash fundraiser.

If you have a youth group or a group of kids in a nonprofit organization a car wash fundraiser in the summertime, this of course is one way to raise the funds you need to propel your organization forward. If you care about customer service during your fundraising activities it makes sense that you will have a greeter or when the customer enters their car in line to get washed.

It also behooves you to have someone who goes in cleans the win...

If you are in the mobile auto detailing business you know that customer service is one of your top priorities and you also know that you expect to get referrals and continued word-of-mouth advertising that it is crucial. Often people consider mobile auto detailers and even mobile car washers as second rate to a carwash facilities or an actual detail shop.

It is interesting that people consider this in that carwashes generally do not give very good service and lack quality and auto-detailing shops do not go to the customer and can never make up for that level of service no matter how hard they try. Nevertheless the customer perception is the way that it is and to overcome this you must blow the customer away in customer service and exceed their expectations.

Customer service in a mobile auto detailing business is paramount. There are many things you can do to show your cus...

Customer support is the core of almost every business. It is through this process that customers and clients are won and retained. But what exactly is it, and how can effective use help your company grow? Read on to find out.

Customer support 101

Customer support refers to the processes that involve the development and delivery of customer support services that include installing, configuring, troubleshooting, assisting and training to meet customer requirements.

The best gauge of the effectiveness of your company’s customer support is the interaction between your employees and your customers. Are your employees wiling to lend after-sales support to your clients, even when you do not require them to? Do you have manpower devoted solely to making sure that your customers are served well after they have bought your services or products?

Some ideas

Remember ...

Satisfying customers is the name of the game in business, right?

And, as so many corporate posters proclaim, “If you don’t satisfy your customers, someone else will!”

But sometimes, satisfying customers is the worst thing you can do if you want to build add-on sales and repeat business.

What did I just say?

I’m the President of Customersatisfaction.com and I said satisfying customers may not be a good idea. Am I out of my mind?

Possibly, but I’m still right, at least according to industrial psychologist Frederick Herzberg, who famously pointed out: “A satisfied need is NOT a motivator!”

Let me give you an example.

You’ve heard the expression that you should never do your shopping for groceries on an empty stomach because you’ll end up buying nearly everything in the store, right? Your need, your hunger is motivating you to buy, right now.

It has been said by many a marketing consultant and book writer on the subject that Word of Mouth Advertising is great, but they warn; It Does Not Just Come Out of Thin Air. In fact they are correct, it does not come out of thin air, no sir, you get word-of-mouth advertising, referrals and customer volunteered testimonials being uttered around town the old fashion way; you earn it.

You earn it and create a “customer salesman” as I call them when you give customer service, which exceeds expectations and when you have done everything else along the way in your business marketing plan correctly.

You see, this is hardly free and no it does not come out of thin air as the marketing gurus tell us or warn us. You must earn it and it does cost money, but it is worth every penny too. Additionally you can create word-of-mouth advertising without ever servicing the particular custome...