Posted by Celia Couture on Tue, Jun 29, 2010 @ 09:22 AM
A recent article in the Harvard Business Review written by Matthew Dixon, Karen Freeman, and Nicholas Toman state the following: "Stop Trying to Delight Your Customers." The authors go on to state, "what most people really want--but rarely get--is just a quick, easy solution to their service issues. Here are five quick tips every company should adopt according to the authors.
To really win customer loyalty, get back to the basics.
- Don't just resolve the current issue--head off the next one. The biggest cause of excessive customer effort is the need to call back. If you do a good job at customer service you should have some mechanism to capture the customer issue without having them repeat it. When you pick up the phone you own the customer issue and the follow up, to ensure that you close the loop with the customer.
- Arm representatives to address the emotional side of customer interactions. Avoid words like "can't," "won't," and "don't,"--use alternate phrasing. Instead of saying, "we don't have that item in stock," a rep might explain, "we'll have that item in stock in two weeks." Simple changes in how reps respond to customers decreases their emotions and helps them focus on what you helped them accomplish.
- Minimize channel switching by incrreasing self-service channel stickiness. Don't overwhelm your customers with multiple interactive self-service options. Customers are bombarded with social media such as Facebook,Twitter, and so on---they don't always know the right resource for them. Work on the help section of your websites so that customers know how to find what they need quickly.
- Use feedback from disgruntled or struggling customers to reducde customer effort. Many companies survey their customers, but then never use the information they have been given. If companies receive poor scores on surveys, representatives need to be taught how to make calls to those customers to resolve their problems. This approach solves three problems: it helps the customer believe you care about what information they have provided, you are able to collect more data and you are resolving the current problem and avoiding the potential for additional problems
- Empower the front line to deliver a low effort experience. Don't value speed over quality. If you want to reduce customer satisfaction issues, empower your representatives to spend quality time on the call. Ensure that they ask the customer, if the service they provided met their needs. EVERY outbound customer call should end the same way. DID WE SATISFY YOUR NEEDS? So many companies don't take advantage of asking this critical question when they have the opportunity to.
The bottom line: reduce customer effort and you increase customer loyalty and build a much stronger customer service organization.
Posted by Celia Couture on Wed, Jun 16, 2010 @ 09:36 PM
In order to succeed as a business owner, you must determine whether you are meeting customer expectations. If you are fortunate, you will have customers comfortable enough to let you know how you are doing. Unfortunately, this is not always the case. We can become complacent and just assume that if we hear nothing then we must be meeting requirements, but this is not always the case.
Many customers or prospective customers are not sure what they should expect, and many will not tell you because they expect you to know. In your customers' eyes, you are the expert at what you do, and you are in the best position to assess whether you are meeting the minimums for your customers.
We take for granted that all customers want to be treated with dignity and respect. Unfortunately, this behavior is not always what we receive from our customer service experts. We may think it is not important to focus on the basics, but a constant reminder about what is important to sustaining customer loyalty over the long-term is the responsibility of every business owner.
The Disney Company prides themselves in achieving customer loyalty through a very specific and sincere value. If something goes wrong with a customer your response needs to be immediate, local and sincere. The Disney Company places accountability for sustaining customer loyalty at the lowest levels in their organization. Employees are taught to act immediately if something is upsetting a customer. The Disney Company insists that the issue be resolved at the point of origin and not passed of to the next level up in the organization and finally the Company expects sincerity in providing a solution for a customer.
It really comes down to total accountability: See IT, Own IT, Solve IT, Do IT!
Follow these simple tips and you will achieve customer loyalty:
- Ownership -Be Approachable
- Listening and responding to the need
- Live interaction and empathy
- Professional image
- Service responsiveness
Test your business. Call and pretend you are an outside customer. How are you treated on the phone? How are you treated when you ask to speak to a mid level manager to help resolve a problem. Are you immediatly passed off to someone else or does the person answering the call take responsibility for resolving the issue.
By practiciing common sense managment, your business will achieve a stronger workforce whose mission becomes keeping the customer satisfied at all costs. We can't afford not to!
Posted by Celia Couture on Thu, Mar 11, 2010 @ 10:22 AM
This is a wonderful article about Customer Service. In today's economy we need to ensure that our companies and our employees understand what it means to deliver outstanding customer service. We can no longer be satisfied with meeting the minimums. We have to go the distance. Ken Blanchard and Barbara Glanz have been held up as experts in this area. I would encourage readers to share this article with your employees.
Excerpt from: The Simple Truths of Service
by Ken Blanchard and Barbara Glanz
Great Service is a Choice
No one can make you serve customers well. That's because great service is a choice. Years ago, my friend, Harvey Mackay, told me a wonderful story about a cab driver that proved this point. He was waiting in line for a ride at the airport. When a cab pulled up, the first thing Harvey noticed was that the taxi was polished to a bright shine. Smartly dressed in a white shirt, black tie, and freshly pressed black slacks, the cab driver jumped out and rounded the car to open the back passenger door for Harvey. He handed my friend a laminated card and said:
"I'm Wally, your driver. While I'm loading your bags in the trunk, I'd like you to read my mission statement."
Taken aback, Harvey read the card. It said:
Wally's Mission Statement:
To get my customers to their destination in the quickest, safest, and cheapest way possible in a friendly environment
This blew Harvey away. Especially when he noticed that the inside of the cab matched the outside. Spotlessly clean!
As he slid behind the wheel, Wally said, "Would you like a cup of coffee? I have a thermos of regular and one of decaf."
My friend said jokingly, "No, I'd prefer a soft drink."
Wally smiled and said, "No problem. I have a cooler up front with regular and Diet Coke, water and orange juice."
Almost stuttering, Harvey said, "I'll take a Diet Coke."
Handing him his drink, Wally said, "If you'd like something to read, I have The Wall Street Journal, Time, Sports Illustratedand USA Today."
As they were pulling away, Wally handed my friend another laminated card. "These are the stations I get and the music they play, if you'd like to listen to the radio."
As if that weren't enough, Wally told Harvey that he had the air conditioning on and asked if the temperature was comfortable for him. Then he advised Harvey of the best route to his destination for that time of the day. He also let him know that he'd be happy to chat and tell him about some of the sights, or, if Harvey preferred, to leave him with his own thoughts.
"Tell me, Wally," my amazed friend asked the driver, "have you always served customers like this?"
Wally smiled into the rear view mirror. "No, not always. In fact, it's only been in the last two years. My first five years driving, I spent most of my time complaining like all the rest of the cabbies do. Then I heard the personal growth guru, Wayne Dyer, on the radio one day. He had just written a book called You'll See It When You Believe It. Dyer said that if you get up in the morning expecting to have a bad day, you'll rarely disappoint yourself. He said, 'Stop complaining! Differentiate yourself from your competition. Don't be a duck. Be an eagle. Ducks quack and complain. Eagles soar above the crowd.'
"That hit me right between the eyes," said Wally. "Dyer was really talking about me. I was always quacking and complaining, so I decided to change my attitude and become an eagle. I looked around at the other cabs and their drivers. The cabs were dirty, the drivers were unfriendly, and the customers were unhappy. So I decided to make some changes. I put in a few at a time. When my customers responded well, I did more."
"I take it this has paid off for you," Harvey said.
"It sure has," Wally replied. "My first year as an eagle, I doubled my income from the previous year. This year I'll probably quadruple it. You were lucky to get me today. I don't sit at cabstands anymore. My customers call me for appointments on my cell phone or leave a message on my answering machine. If I can't pick them up myself, I get a reliable cabbie friend to do it and I take a piece of the action."
Wally was phenomenal. He was running a limo service out of a Yellow Cab. I've probably told that story to more than fifty cab drivers over the years, and only two took the idea and ran with it. Whenever I go to their cities, I give them a call. The rest of the drivers quacked like ducks and told me all the reasons they couldn't do any of what I was suggesting.
Johnny the Bagger and Wally the Cab Driver made a different choice. They decided to stop quacking like ducks and start soaring like eagles. How about you?