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Customer service Tagged Articles
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Unforgetttable Customer Cervice - It's So Simple, Or is it?
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| Customer service is given a lot of lip service by a lot of organizations today. What it really comes down to is one-on-one attention, courtesy, and a bit of soft salesmanship as your front-line people interact with your customers. It sounds simple, but some people make it so complicated and difficult that it seems to be a vanishing talent these days. Here is one story of a simple yet effective approach. |
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Sales Training 101
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| We are so conditioned to think about selling in terms of “helping customers,” that we sometimes loose sight of the fact that not everyone wants or needs “help.” Think about it. The assistance you offer one is the pestering you provide another. The most important thing to assess when dealing with customers is whether they are decisive or not when it comes to making a decision about your product. From there, you can gauge not only how much you need to give, but also how much “selling” versus backing off is actually necessary.
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Who’s the Boss? The Answer May Surprise You
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| As Sam Walton said: “There is only one boss - the customer – and he can fire everybody in the company from the chairman on down simply by spending his money somewhere else.” |
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Customer Complaints - Who Gathers Your Intelligence?
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| Complaints are a valuable asset to any organization, once you can ensure that your people are willing to play. And to get them with you, they need to know that it's not personal... |
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Do Not Bring Me Problems Bring Me Solutions
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| "Do not bring me problems bring me solutions!" That's a phrase I have used several times with just about everyone in my life at one time or another. I never really thought about what it meant. It took me awhile to realize that the one common factor in all of the issues that I have come across in my business and my life had one common denominator: me. That's right; I had to take stock in how I was operating and what I could do to take the burden of running every little thing off my shoulders. What I discovered was a slow process, but the end result shocked me. |
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Set your business apart with little expense and effort
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| Losing customers? Having a hard time attracting new customers? Maybe it has to do with the level of customer service you provide. Treat your customers right and not only will they be loyal but will also be more willing to purchase more for your business. |
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Meshing Customer Service with Marketing to Increase Revenue
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| Customer service has a bad reputation as its costs seem to be greater than its benefits. But, it does not have to be this way. There are easy ways to combine your marketing with your customer service to increase your business’s revenues and profit. |
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Spank the Competition With Superior Service
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| If the product is identical from multiple retailers, and you've removed the price barrier - what's left? Service. Focus on providing the customer with a better experience, better service, or a better value, and you'll win their loyalty. |
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The Drive to Market
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| Customers, like cars, get much better mileage when they are properly cared for. |
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Product Knowledge - A True Story That Supports Its Importance
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| A fresh-faced young sales clerk gets a lesson in product knowledge using an unlikely prop - an athletic support. This true story played an integral role in the early training of a popular internet marketer. |
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Growth Through Strategic Customer Service
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| Take all possible steps & proactively grow your organization this year – and in doing so, we might do well to remember that one way to make money is to not lose any! |
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Giving Customers News They Can Use
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| In times when your marketing budget may be tight, utilizing resources like your customer newsletter can pay dividends. |
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When Does Customer Service Start?
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| Does customer service start once someone becomes a customer or does it start upon first contact with that person? |
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You can’t automate customer service
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| Service-based companies must maintain a personal connection with their customers |
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Goals for sales reps in 2010
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| The downturn in the world economy has forced a lot of companies to rethink their sales plans in the last year or two. While some sectors of business might not be doing as badly as others, the general feeling is one of "things can't go on like this forever." This half-hopeful/ half incredulous outlook is pretty much the norm right now. For the new entrepreneur though, this is an opportunity to compete on a more level playing field. The big players in just about every sector have scaled back in so many areas that the market has opened up for the more streamlined and customer service oriented small businesses. For sales people this is your chance to play ball.
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Be Easy To Do Business With - Turning Your Prospects Into Clients
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| If you want to turn your prospects into customers, then you need to ask yourself if you are easy to do business with? Well actually, you need to ask your customers if you are easy to do business with. When you sell, you sell an experience. Your next job is to ensure your prospects receive the positive experience you sold them when they actually do business with your company. |
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Involve your employees in your business
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| You may be saying - but I do involve my employees in my business...but do you?
Of course your employees to do the work of the business and the employees, with the right direction, make any business great as it expands, but there are not many business owners that involve their employees in helping with important decisions.
I would suggest that you ask them their opinion on various expansion ideas or where you are looking at introducing new products or services get their input on this.
Also, ask them how to improve on customer service, especially those employees that are on the front line, as it were...as these are the ones that are dealing with the customers directly and are therefore likely to give you some of the best feedback. |
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Customer Service in Japan
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| When travelling to Japan it is hard not to notice the politeness of the people, especially in the shops, malls, restaurants and other businesses. It is well worth a look at how and why they seem to have or at least present perfect customer service. We could learn a lot from them! |
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Five Ways Forward-Thinking Leaders Are Using The Recession To Build and Reposition Their Teams for Rapid Growth
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| Over the past eight weeks, I have been interviewing CEO’s of Team Cultures for my upcoming book and have learned some great tips to share with you about how they are strategically benefiting from the economic downturn. Just like the TIGERS universal team values, these tips offer common sense solutions that many individualistic cultures will find difficult to implement due to burdensome hierarchies and competitive infrastructure. |
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From Bricks to Clicks; Online Retail Visiblity
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| We are in a different era of doing business where you need to supplement your bricks and mortar operation with an on-line presence to reach more of your audience and be competitive. Especially if you are targeting demographics that will research your store before they visit for location, hours, etc. Customer loyalty can also be maintained by regular emails; website presence and customer service. |
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Customer Service Excellence - Cultivating Your Raving Fans
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| Customers are an asset. Yet how many managers have the insights to make much more of these people that simply completing today's transaction. They are much more valuable than that... |
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Customer Service and the 21st Century Business Model
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| James Dicks examines the changing times business is facing when dealilng with their customer. |
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Customer Service Stabbed Marketing in the Office with a Knife
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| Do you have a clue what is killing your marketing efforts? Whether you are a small business or large corporation, it is likely at least one of these customer service issues is planning the death of your marketing dollars! |
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Smart Women Give Their Clients an Experience
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| This article is about how important it is to give your clients a positive experience when they visit you or call upon you about your products and services. Giving your prospects, and existing clients, a positive experience with you will help you to gain their business and also more referrals. |
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11 Ways to Get What You Want - Be a Clever Customer!
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| 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. |
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I'm a Customer, Damn It
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| With each passing day, businesses who covet my dollars seem to want me, the supposed customer to do more of their work and to give them money for that privilege! |
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Success Comes When You Are Sold on You - the 3 Step Formula
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| Have you ever heard yourself say, “I hate sales” or “I am not very good at sales”? Are we not all in sales? Besides any product, what we are selling is ourselves: our personality, our skills and our knowledge. This article provides you with a simple 3-step formula you can apply, to increase your success... on the business and home fronts. |
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Customer Service in the Nonprofit Community - How Does Your Organization Rate?
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| Having worked in the nonprofit community for most of my career, I have seen varying levels of good and bad customer service. I have always been a proponent of exemplary customer service and feel that it should be the number one priority for any nonprofit organization. Every nonprofit exists to meet the needs of specific customers through the delivery of services and programs. As such, shouldn't their customers be their top priority, as they are their most important stakeholders? This article asks questions related to your customer service practices, and items you should consider in relation to developing and implementing a quality customer service program.
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ARE YOU CREATING RAVING FANS?
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| Customer service is a key opportunity for most businesses in today’s marketplace to add and keep more customers as well as increase the bottom-line. Unfortunately, today’s customers have been forced to accept poor customer service as many companies have cut back on customer care in order to compete on price and profitability. This decision is hurting top and bottom-line results. |
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Remove Distractions to Ignite Sales Growth – Part 1
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| The most common thief of sales growth is distraction. Based on my experience, I estimate that on average, employees lose 40% of their time to distractions. This number ranges between 30% and 60%, depending on the company they work for, and can reach as high as 70%, depending on the individual. Distractions can be classified into two types: 1) leadership and organization; and 2) individual-specific. The leadership and organization distractions can be categorized into poor sales support, customer service mishaps, products that do not meet client needs, bad sales management, and poor communications. “Individual-specific” distractions refer to daily mental or situational conditions faced by the salesperson. Part I deals with leadership and organization because these have a more dramatic impact on growth than most companies realize |
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Doing The Right Thing
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| An article with examples of Customer Service and meeting the needs of our customers. |
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GOOD CUSTOMER SERVICE
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| I could just tell by the look of them they were going to be difficult. There were going to want to split their meals, order a half salad, half French fries. They were the type that when they ordered a strawberry sundae it they would make some ridiculous request for a dab of whipping cream. Not a dollop. And God help her if one of them orders a milkshake. She’d be at the milkshake maker up to her elbows in chocolate ice cream. |
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Do I Expect Too Much?
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| Have the rules for business courtesy changed in the 21st century? |
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All I Ask...
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| 7 things to remember about how to treat a customer. |
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The Sad State of Customer Service or How to lose customers!
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| With an economy limping along and businesses struggling to survive, what happens when things start to change for the better? Has your organization cut to the bone? Can current staff make the time to handle new customers? Will they be too stressed out and time constrained that first impressions are bad impressions? Before we can recover, we have to learn how to do better, not just more, with less. This article highlights the real problems that lie ahead... |
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Want to Grow Your Business? Stop Blaming the Customer
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| If the staff in your company constantly complain about customers it could be limiting your growth. After all, the customers write the checks that pay the bills. Challenging customers may be difficult to serve but they also need what you provide and may even be willing to pay more for the priviledge. |
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When 60 Minutes Calls - How to handle the media during a customer service crisis
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| There are times when being a manager can make you a media target. The larger your organization, the greater the odds of something embarrassing happening that ends up for the world to see on YouTube. Over and over. It could be a spill that causes environmental damage, a defective product that needs recalling, or an employee videotaped sleeping-on-the-job. If you are that manager being asked by a reporter to comment, here are a few tips to ensure that your company’s brand and your personal reputation withstand the barrage. |
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Good Marketing and Stellar Customer Service Key to Small Biz Success
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| Businesses that don't have the cash flow to build brand recognition with brand management and advertising can still compete. The opportunity to differentiate lies in Internet marketing and sales tools. Here are a few guidelines in helping develop a successful shopping experience from decision to purchase.
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Satisfying Customers is Key in Managing Small Business Brand Reputation
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| In order to better align your customer's perceptions with your intentions, it is important to actively listen to them. What are their concerns? What are their needs that you might not be fulfilling? Remember that "the customer is always right" even when they are wrong. There will be times when you as a small business owner will be unable to please a customer, perhaps because their request is unreasonable. There are some customers who will just never be satisfied. As a business owner, you have to just accept the fact that you can't make some people happy. However, as long as you handle their complaints respectfully and apologetically where appropriate, you will hopefully be able to thwart any negative publicity stemming from their dissatisfaction.
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Go on Vacation to Grow Your Business
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| If you want to improve your business, go on vacation. Vacation is a great time to decompress, not accomplish anything meaningful, and eliminate any noise coming from an alarm clock. It's also a great time to observe customer service and sales. My vacations have always left me with a few business takeaways. Here are some observations: |
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Do you make your clients feel safe?
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| Do you make your clients feel safe?
If your clients don't feel safe - they won't buy from you. And they won't tell you why. It's not enough to be safe. You must make them feel safe. When they don't feel safe fear kicks into gear. Fear is the biggest obstacle to buying.
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Four Ways to Dazzle Your Customers
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| Creating a dazzling, memorable service experience will keep customers coming back and will turn them into raving fans. Here are four simple ways to turn your organization in a Dazzler-Producing Machine... |
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Can a Techie Ever Understand a Customer?
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| At the recent ProductCamp in Austin, I heard a well-respected researcher make the following comment: ‘Techies will never understand customers.' That's quite a statement. And it's false.
I used to run a tech company. We employed 48 techies, so I guess I can qualify as knowing a bit how they think. As they began doing their work as project managers, programmers, and systems designers, I heard them frequently say: "Customers are stupid. They tell me what they want, and then when I give it to them they don't want it." |
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Dont Underestimate the Power of Customer Service
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| Without spending a penny, here is some advice that is sure to boost your sales and bring in more customers. |
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Lessons in Customer Service for Target
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| A true story about the importance of customer service |
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Customer Reviews: A Double-Edged Sword
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| Customer reviews, both solicited (sections included on your website) and unsolicited (conversations taking place on social networking sites and industry forums) provide feedback to business owners about how their brand is being perceived and experienced. If acted upon to provide a better product or service, they will improve your company's offering(s) and will enhance the shopping experience for potential customers who want more information.
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Refuse to Lose!
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| When times get a little tough in selling, we often hear of some people (myself included) stating that they “refuse to participate in a recession.” As a matter of fact, this has been said so often that it is becoming a bit cliché. However, we do need to REFUSE some of the things that hold us back during tougher economic times. We do need to REFUSE to suffer mediocrity from ourselves or our people. We do need to REFUSE to drop our prices but instead raise the bar on our value. We need to REFUSE to let our customers get a better experience buying from a competitor. |
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BE DiFFERENT = Evolve AND Distinguish
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| Its not good enough to evolve and adapt to a changing world, you must distinguish youself in the sea of competition... |
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BE DiFFERENT Rules System
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| Rules, Policies, Procedures, Administrative Routines... business development tools that are related in most organizations to an internal control role. Successful organizations build their Rules System to SERVE the customer.... |
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How To Provide Top Quality Customer Service in Internet Marketing
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| Some people make the mistake of disregarding customer service when running an online business. The truth is that the higher your customer service standard, the more money you will be able to earn. If you treat your customers like real people, instead of just a potential sale, you'll be much more likely to earn their business. You'll make a little bit of money if you simply set up your site and wait for customers to happen upon you. But, if you give your customers a chance to come back and do business with you again, you'll will benefit economically. Offering excellent customer service is actually pretty easy. Here are some things you can start doing today to provide your buyers with a better buying experience. |
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Alliances
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| As the development of new customers becomes more complex, the ability to develop alliances is becoming more critical to the success of your company |
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Better, Best vs. DiFFERENT
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| Look around at the competitive claims being made these days, and most of them will look something like:
- 'We offer the best network'
- 'Our customer service is better than our competition' |
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Does Your Team Send The Right Message
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| In this new economy trust and value have become the new Return On Investment. Trust is built through consistent interaction with your company, and value is simply the customer believing they are heard, cared about and their needs are met. As a business owner, you may be delivering that kind of service on a day-in and day-out basis, but what about your team? Are you sure that every time a client calls your office, one of your locations or works with a new employee, that they are getting same message or service they have come to count on? |
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Does Your Business Belong to the Awesome Party Squad?
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| Customer service isn't just a tired phrase for employee handbooks. Want to "Wow!" your customers? It requires you to offer an atmosphere of exuberance and inclusion. When they feel welcomed and know you're treating them as individuals, word spreads. |
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Four Key Principles for Small Business Success
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| Someone asked me recently, “if you were talking to a group of small business owners today, what would you say to them about finding success in this economy”? I thought through a range of responses, but the one thing I keep coming back to is this, be smart! Hidden in that simple response are four key principles of small business success. |
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Managing Perpetual Workplace Changes
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| It doesn't matter whether you are an old timer or an amateur in what you do. All that matters in our jungle is to apply the lion-gazelle concept of survival. "Every morning in Africa, a gazelle wakes up. It knows it must run faster than the fastest lion, or it will die. Every morning in Africa, a lion wakes up. It knows it must run faster than the slowest gazelle or it will starve to death. It doesn't matter whether you are a lion or a gazelle; when the sun comes up, you'd better be running."
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Make Your Story Add Value to Your Clients Bottom Line
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| The purpose of your story for a workplace audience is to improve the bottom line. Even in those employee appreciation programs where entertainment may seem the focus, there is an undeniable expectation of increased productivity after your story is heard. The question to ask yourself when using your story is: What is the point of the story and how does the story improve a client's bottom line? |
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Are You a Problem Solver or a Problem Blamer?
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| I fly a decent amount and have had a lot of good and a lot of bad experiences with the airlines. The biggest issue I have with the airlines, especially my carrier of choice, is not that they make mistakes. I don’t expect any business to be perfect. At issue is how they deal with problems. Too often, their first reaction is to put the problem back with me. The protocol seems to be to assume first that the customer is wrong (blame), and take responsibility much later, if ever. How do you react when there is a problem with your product or service? |
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Connecting Through Conflict: Five Ways Great Connectors Turn Angry Clients into Happy Ones…and How You Can Too!
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| It’s easy to connect with clients when things are going well. But when conflict arises, well, that’s when “connectors” truly earn their stripes. Here’s how to transform customer frustration into a stronger business relationship-one that lasts a long, long time. |
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Would you get A Tattoo of the General Motors’ Logo?
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| When was the last time you were really excited about the customer service you received? A recent survey showed that 44% of people rate the customer service they usually receive as dull and bland.
Most customer service experiences are, well ok, and we unusually come away somewhat satisfied from the experience. This is all well and good, but most of your competitors are already doing this. To stand out from the competition you need to demonstrate customer service on a dramatically different level: service that is anything but bland and dull! Think Disney, Harley Davidson, or Apple.
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Don't operate like a Cave Man....
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| Don't make it a hassle to do business with you.
Are you available to customers when they have the time to meet you or come into your business?
Are you accepting every form of payment?
Are you making it easy for customers to understand the benefits you provide for them?
Are you making it easy for customers to contact you? |
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Lesson #2: You’re Only As Good As The People You Hire
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| “None of us is as good as all of us,” Kroc would say. A strong proponent of teamwork, Kroc understood that his growing company could only continue its meteoric rise up if it had the support and the dedication of its workers behind it. In order to ensure staff loyalty and motivate his employees, Kroc did his best to guarantee that they were treated with respect and were able to operate on an equal playing field. |
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Lesson #2: Customer Satisfaction is Your Secret Weapon
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| “We have the best customer satisfaction record, based on Transportation Dept. statistics, of any airline in America, the fewest complaints filed per 100,000 passengers carried,” says Kelleher. “So you’re not just getting low fares, you’re also getting wonderful customer service.” |
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Herb Kelleher Quotes
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| Herb Kelleher Quotes |
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Lesson #4: A Great Businessman is Only as Great as His Vision
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| What is the difference between an average point guard and a great point guard? According to Johnson, it all lies in the vision. Great point guards see the court differently than everyone else. They envision where they need to go and how they are going to get there before they even touch the ball. Johnson, unarguably one of basketball’s greatest point guards ever, used that very same vision in crossing over to the business world. |
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Lesson #1: “There’s no genius behind it. It’s persistence and listening to people.”
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| From its onset, Craigslist was born from the ideas and suggestions of its users. When Newmark began sending out his email list in 1995 to a small group of interested subscribers, almost immediately, he began receiving emails back with suggestions for job and apartment listings they hoped Newmark would add to his list. |
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Selling: The Greatest Customer Service
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| Articles about customer service almost never include the word “Selling”. You will see how selling is usually the best thing you can do as a service to your customers. |
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BlackBerry Jones No More
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| When we hire employees to interact with the public, we’re entrusting our image to them. The guidance, direction and even nurturing of our employees is often the best investment business owners can make. |
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In search of better
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| Every day, in almost every office of almost every organization, people are going to get together to make something better. |
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Starting over with customer service
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| I've been writing a lot about this topic lately and thinking about it more. I have a radical proposal for you, but it takes a few paragraphs, so I hope you'll bear with me. |
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"The Ultimate Question"-Answered
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| Our Amalfi Coast hike was overseen by Country Walkers. I'm busy writing my lengthy assessment. Views great, group great—chief guide awful, substance and style,* and I'm being generous, and hotels average to awful (Capri, view of stone wall—no shit) and food—in Italy!!!!—mediocre. |
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Too Many Complaints
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| So much for the belief that the customer is always right. |
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Ask Yourself Seven Questions
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| To be successful, you need to ask yourself some tough questions. Here's a great exercise to get you thinking about your dream job or business. Commit to your answers by writing them down. These Seven Steps to Success come from Dr. Mark Goulston, author of Get Out of Your Own Way at Work.
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Increasing Your Sales with No Out of Pocket
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| In today’s market, most of us are focusing on how to stay in business and increase profits without having to spend a lot of money in the process. Doing this can be a real challenge and at times, really frustrating. So, I like to look at this process like playing a strategic board game. It takes some real “think out of the box” along with some good team players and some creative ideas, all mixed together to reach the end of the game and win the prize as inexpensively as possible. |
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Do Quality Technical Support for Your Business
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| Good technical support can help you increase customer conversion rate and win fine reputation. Also, it is good for brand dissemination. Here are some guides to help you do good technical support for your business. |
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The Benefits of Working
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| Many older adults view work as a worthwhile activity that they have no plans to retire from.Each person in the work place can find satisfaction in a job well done with pride. It is this spirit that sets the successful person apart. |
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Have You Had a High Definition Moment Lately?
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| A High Definition Moment is an interaction between a customer an an organization that is jam-packed with EMOTION... |
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We want more than a script
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| Hundreds of thousands, if not millions of sales people around the world use sales scripts. Used properly, sales scripts act as scaffolding or bridgework to earn us the right to have a meaningful discussion with our prospecting customers, members, donors or subscribers. The sales script is a well constructed set of guidelines that support us when we prospect.
Good sales scripts:
* are purposeful – have a clear reason why you are calling someone;
* use language the customer understands;
* are designed for the benefit of the listener with it always being “the prospects choice” to accept or reject what they hear;
* are brief and allow for questions and conversations;
* aim to achieve a result – an appointment, donation, purchase, feedback, etc; |
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Amazing Customer Service is not Extinct!
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| I am optimistic by nature and my cynical side is often suppressed to the point of being clueless according to people close to me. Amazingly, when it comes to customer service, I am very critical of most organizations. I do pay attention and take note of very small details about the service I and others receive. I have expectations that I be treated like I hope to treat the customers that I serve in my own business. |
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Settling for Less
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| Poor service seems to have become the status quo. Why is that? In business we all talk the talk of customer focus, we all share the same vision - but in execution we seem to fall far short.
I'm beginning to wonder if it's our own fault - as customers, not as business leaders. Are we settling for less? |
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The Customer is Not Always Right
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| When customers step across the lines above, it’s time to take a hard look at whether you really want to be a business partner with them. Ask yourself - what are your chances of success with this customer. Will they really be profitable? If the answer is “slim to none”, move on! |
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Boosting your Business in a Slow Economy
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| Question: what are two words that will become increasingly important to customers over the next decade? The answer, according to marketing guru Frank Luntz, is “hassle free”. Customers are fed up with being forced to jump through hoops. Yet bizarrely, even in a slow economy, companies are actually becoming more difficult for customers to do business with - before, during and after purchases. To see if your organization is creating these unnecessary hassles for your customers, take this mini-quiz. Then consider using the accompanying tips I talk about my customer service seminars and speeches. |
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Buying Trends – the Shift to Hassle-Free
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| You may have noticed a shift in recent years in what it takes to satisfy customers. Customers are now making buying decisions less on the quality of an organization’s products and services, and more on the quality of the buying experience itself. If you’re a business owner or manager, this trend offers both risk and opportunity. To ensure that your organization profits from this shift in customer loyalty, consider a recent history of buying behaviors… |
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Creating a Customer Feeding Frenzy - 4 tools that make you simply irresistible
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| Customers hate to be sold to, but they love to buy. The problem is that most customer-contact employees focus their attention on trying to sell, when instead they should be stimulating the customer's natural urge to buy. "Creating a Customer Feeding Frenzy" provides four ethical ways to stimulate emotional buying behavior. |
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Crucial Questions to Superior Sales
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| When your customers aren’t sure which of your products or services they should buy, consider this handy tool that not only helps create clarity, but also positions you as a trusted advisor. I’m referring to a time-test sales tool known as SWOT. SWOT stands for Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats. When I do customer service and sales seminars and speeches for groups, I often hear this is one of the most useful tools people learn. Here’s how to ask SWOT questions... |
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Grand Intentions to Greater Sales
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| You’ve probably noticed that today’s consumer is better educated, streetwise, and, frankly, more cynical about other people’s motives than ever before. Consumers seem to be taking the advice that parents give their children: “Come straight home, and don’t talk to strangers!” Beyond telling employees to be friendly with customers, managers need to equip their staff with tools for establishing trust. Expressing your Grand Intention is an easy way to break through the barriers. |
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Making Connections - How to create rapport with anyone in under 30 seconds
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| Society is becoming increasingly diverse and global. That means that we are communicating more frequently with people who are different -- in their looks, dress, manner of speech, and even mood. "Making Connections" reveals a fast and easy way to establish rapport with others despite the differences. |
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Management Lessons from a Car Wash Guy
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| If you’re serious about strengthening customer loyalty, consider this management lesson I learned from an odd source - a car wash attendant. It’s an easy customer service concept that may change the course of your business. |
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Managing Multiple Customers
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| You know the scenario… your workday is running smoothly and manageably when suddenly you find yourself dealing with one customer in front of you, another on the phone, while a third arrives with just a quick question. When organizations bring me to conduct customer service seminars, I find this is one of the most frequent challenges frontline employees ask me to address. While there are no absolute rules for juggling customers (you need to adapt to your workplace’s business realities) here are 5 tips that we find work well for our clients in reducing stress and boosting customer loyalty. |
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Phrases that Pay - Simple Statements that Increase your Perceived Value
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| The conventional wisdom about providing great service is that employees must have an attitude that bubbles with enthusiasm. But in the real world of upset customers, long hours, and stress, employee enthusiasm occasionally fizzles. "Phrases that Pay" reveals several ways for employees to sound more helpful and professional even when they're not having a zipity-do-dah day. |
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Risky Business - How repeat customers may jeopardize your future
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| When I speak at conferences and corporate meetings about customer service I often hear managers reminding their team members about the importance of repeat business. The assumption is that if customers keep spending their money with you, they must like you. But is that really true? Many business owners and managers are unaware of the harsh reality that some folks who spend their money with your organization may not enjoy doing business with you at all. The consequences of this can be staggering. Consider the example of my local video store... |
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The Humility Advantage
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| Discover how less ego create more sales |
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When Talking to Strangers
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| Discover three reasons potential customers may distrust you or your employees. |
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Yes, I Mind Waiting - 10 ways to reduce lineup stress for staff and customers
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| Most managers' idea of dealing with a sudden lineup of customers is to simply have the staff work harder and faster. The problem is that employees soon get tired and begin making errors -- which takes more time to fix later-on. Worse, employees under stress can become irritable with customers -- which destroys repeat business. "Yes, I Mind Waiting" reveals 10 ways to manage lineups without making the staff work at full speed. |
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Retain Customers and Increase Business Opportunities
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| Coach your inside sales team to do the following and see your business opportunities soar. |
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How To Win Back A Customer
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| Everyone who has been in sales knows how much work it can take to acquire a new customer - which makes losing a customer that much more painful. This article talks about strategies for winning back customers who might be thinking of walking. |
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Dealing with Difficult Customers #4
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| Dealing with 'Suspicious Sally' - Customers who don't trust you. (From Shaun Belding's "Winning at Work" newsletter |
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Dealing with Difficult Customers #3
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| How to deal with an hysterical customer. (From Shaun Belding's "Winning at Work" newsletter) |
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Dealing with Difficult Customers #2
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| How to deal with customers who want to complain, but not listen. (From Shaun Belding's "Winning at Work" newsletter |
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Dealing with Difficult Customers #1
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| How to deal with customers who are information junkies and time vampires (From Shaun Belding's "Winning at Work" newsletter |
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"Arrogant Al": The Condescending Internal Customer
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| Most of us have ‘internal customers' - people in our own company who rely on us to provide them with some level of service or support. For many of us, working in administration, human resources, IT, training, etc., providing internal customer service is our primary role. Unfortunately, just as there are difficult external customers, there are also difficult internal customers. One of the common situations we see are internal customers who simply appear to not respect the roles of their internal service providers. They come across as condescending, dismissive, arrogant and sometimes plain rude. It is a recipe for a poisonous workplace atmosphere. What do you do? |
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Do Companies Hate Their Customers? Or Do They Just Not Care?
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| Customer service seems to no longer exist. Why? Are consumers not liked? Or do businesses just not care anymore as long as they get your money! |
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What to Expect When Dealing With Independent Sales Reps
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| When you have independent sales reps working for you, there are some things you can reasonably expect from them, as well as some things that are not reasonable to expect. While you should expect your reps to report their successes and provide customer service for your lines, they should not be expected to take title of the lines they carry, nor should they be expected to resolve warranty issues. |
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Do You Have a Chief Serving Officer?
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| If Serving Customers is so critical to creating customer loyalty (and it is) why is the chair vacant at the executive table? |
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Customer Service STILL Sucks!
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| Despite decades of focus and attention many businesses today still do not appreciate the absolute need to conduct business from their customers' perspective. Ego and pride stands between a strong, unbreakable customer base and a weak connection easily broken by an attentive competitor. |
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Why do your Customers Choose to do Business With You?
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| No one deserves customers just because they're in business. Customer loyalty must be earned one customer at a time. It's a time consuming, strenuous activity that pays huge dividends in the long term. |
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Getting Effective Results from Customer Service E-mails
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| Lots of e-mails are sent each day, but many people send e-mail without logically thinking them out. Have you ever sent someone an e-mail and left out important information? It's important when your are requesting help or to be contacted in a matter other than e-mail to structure your e-mail properly. Having answered hundreds of customer service e-mail I thought I provide a help list of things to avoid and things to include in order to receive the best service possible. |
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Is Customer Service A Thing Of The Past?
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| The economy is bad and companies are losing money left and right. Wouldn’t you think one of their top priorities would be amazing customer service? Customer service is a means for a company to stand out and encourage people to buy from them instead of their competitors. |
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Customer Service Jobs: Improve Your Skills
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| Statistics say that 68% of customers stop patronizing a company because of perceived poor service. That number is incredibly high, especially considering consumers are being far more selective with their spending habits these days. |
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Thank you, Steven Slater and Jet Blue for Highlighting One Thing!
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| I have been reading about Jet Blue's flight attendant's meltdown, and whether or not Steven Slater started the affair or the passenger did, it still highlights something that we can all probably agree on. People in general have lost their manners, and society needs to get back to basics. Whether we are on the road, in an airplane, in the workplace, shopping, or at home, people are not treating each other properly and in many cases are just downright rude and disrespectful. |
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What’s the difference between a member, a client and a customer?
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| What’s in a name? Well, there seems to be some confusion in the market place around the terminology used to describe those people who pay us money for goods, services, experiences, donations, etc.
Different industries can have different terms for the consumers of their products and/or services. We see terms such as customer, client, patient, guest, patron, member, subscriber, donor, etc. used to describe a person who buys our products or services and intends to use them directly. In short, these terms are referring to the same person – the ‘end user’. However, not everyone ‘consumes’ our products or services or is the intended ‘end user’. Some people or businesses buy our products or services to ‘on sell’ them to another party, often the final end user, but not always. |
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Five Insights On Increasing Profits through Value and Service
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| Are you focused on lead generation or improving customer experience? It's 5 times more expensive to generate a new sale. The most profitable way to grow is to increase repeat sales and referral business and yet, over 65% of entrepreneurs spend a majority of the budget on new business.
When you increase your value and service experience, you'll be able to generate more profitable growth from your most valuable asset - your current clients. |
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Are You Customer Centric?
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| If you want your business to grow, drive the bottom line, and have happy customers that love sending you business, then build a customer centric culture! |
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How honest are you prepared to be to grow your Business?
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| What challenges is your business going to face in 2009?
What measures are you going to take to grow your business?
To really get to the bottom of the issues, to really focus on finding better solutions we need to apply a great deal of honesty - here is my 3 step approach to identify the real problems and solve them.
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Who’s qualified to speak for you?
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| Make sure those who represent your product or service know about them. |
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If Only I Knew Sooner
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| How to spot a potentially difficult client before it’s too late. |
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Be a Friend to Your Customers
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| By being a friend to your customers you can build your business. Learn how one business owner practices this basic rule of success to attract more customers and help make his business more profitable. |
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Your Attitude Towards Your Customers Can Make the Difference
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| It has been said that "man with frown should not open store" nor should he expect his business to grow and prosper. No one likes to be around a grouch.This article will give you the wrong way and the right way a business owner or manager should look at the challenge of serving their customers. |
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Little Things Make a Big Difference
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| Learn how the little things can make a big difference to your customers. Tom will share with you easy ways to do the things that will keep your customers coming back again and again. |
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10 Ways to Get Rid of Your Customers
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| It always amazes me when a fellow online business owner shows his/her customers no appreciation. I even had one fellow ebook store owner say that he wanted everything as easy as possible because he did not want to have to bother with his customers. |
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Maximizing Retail Growth
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| In these hard times, every customer matters. Retailers must ensure that all customer who contact them have an extraordinary experience which, ideally, leads to better percentage of customers actually purchasing goods and services and larger average sales per customer. Traditional means of increasing store performance, typically training, have not been successful at developing store personnel sufficiently to provide this winning customer experience. |
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The Art of Technical Writing
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| Treating technical writing as an art form is the privilege of master marketers because they always place the relationship with prospective customers ahead of selling. Customer service begins the moment you begin communicating with prospects and instructions they need to follow send a very strong message about how much you care. Even if the entire set of directions is contained in three easy steps you can add a few pictures or graphics and make non-technical consumers more comfortable.
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The Customer Isn't Always Right
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| A blasphemous concept? Or smart business. We take a closer look at this age old axiom. |
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How to Get Your Managers and Employees to Follow Through with Outstanding Sevice
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| Whether you are an organization of 25 or 5,000, one of the greatest obstacles to a well run team is getting your managers and employees to consistently treat your clients and customers right.
Far too often, the customer service training program that is completed gets mediocre results. The employee of the month program seems to die a quiet death. The motivational posters urging employees to excel in being a team player and delivering excellent service appear to be useless. What is the missing link that will bind these and other reinforces together to create the changes you want? Find out by reading this educational article.
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Managing Your Organization with a Positive Attitude
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| Running a successful company starts with a can do attitude. Your thought process filters down throughout your entire organization eventually finding its' way to your customers. By developing a strategy to lead your company or department with a Positive Mental Attitude, it can make all the difference in the world. |
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Three Proven Pro-Active Service Recovery Strategies
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| In this article we provide three proven service recovery strategies, which when used consistently, are guaranteed to turn customer problems into opportunities for building customer loyalty |
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Excellent Customer Service
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| Strategies for creating and sustaining a competitive edge are, often, focused on large- scale efforts around product design, financial repositioning, structural-realignment, and capital investment. While these elements do sit at the heart of grandiose plans for taking on and beating the competition, I have been reminded, of late, that excellent customer service is the soul of most business success. Perhaps it is the twelve week marathon through the blended holiday season that has my antennas tuned into the, often, overlooked little things that keep customers coming back or turns them away. |
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Customer Service-What Could You Do With an Extra Half-a-Million Dollars?
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| Could customer service trump sales as a growth strategy of your company. There are many good companies but few superior, when it comes to customer retention. Here is a plan that will double your growth. |
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The Emotional Foundation of Customer Service
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| To serve your customers you need to first emotionally connect. Yes, you need process and consistency to create long term value, sustainability and credibility, but first you need to ensure that both you and your team understand the basics of emotional connection. |
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Check Yourself for Outstanding Customer Service in Three Easy Steps
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| The following are three ways to “check yourself” to give outstanding customer service. |
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Customer Service Secrets: Six Secrets of Outstanding Customer Satisfaction
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| What, then, are the secrets to customer satisfaction and winning back an angry customer so that the situation becomes an outstanding customer service experience?
The following are six customer service secrets for winning back customers, increasing customer satisfaction, and increasing your bottom line |
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Eight Customer Service Secrets to “Jumpstarting” Your Customer Service During Challenging Times!
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| The following are eight secrets to giving outstanding customer service so that your organization will be successful. |
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Ten Customer Service Secrets to Win Back Customers
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Let’s take a look at the ten secrets that will not only win back your customer in any situation, but have them referring new customers that will add more money to your bottom line revenue. |
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Five Powerful Customer Service Secrets to Growing Your Business During Challenging Times
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| The secret weapon for being successful during this changing time is customer service. Outstanding customer service will make you stand out from the competition and make your organization successful. Whether your organization is for profit or non-profit, a private or government agency; or a big corporation vs. a small business, the following five customer service secrets will help you succeed in any situation. |
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Make it Fun for Your Customers to Do Business with You
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| This article will give you some ideas on how to make it a fun and rewarding experience for your customers when they choose to do business with you. |
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Become a Problem Solver for Your Customers
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| This article illustrates how one employee became a problem solver and earned a customer for life. |
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Customer Service Tips: How Not to Provide Service
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| Imagine my surprise when I read the flyer in my mailbox from the US Postal Service that suggested I install a new mailbox, at my expense, at the end of the cul de sac so “we can serve you better.”
As far as I can tell, the only one who benefits from this is the USPS because they can batch process 10 houses (if my neighbors do this) in less time than it takes for them to drive to each house.
While I can see the benefit to the USPS – faster time, less travel and less gas, I fail to see how this helps me. |
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Entrepreneur's Coaching Center - Knock their Socks Off (customer service that counts)
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| Satisfied customers buy from the competition. Customer loyalty is created by customer service that creates apostles among your customers. Customers that buy once, twice, three times and tell their friends about their wonderful experience. You want some of them. A lot of them. Here is how to begin. |
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Does Your Business Phone Accept All Callers?
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| Quick question. Does your small or home-based business lose potential business or miss connections with a potential client by refusing to answers callers with a blocked number?
This article is going to explore how accessible your business phone should be.
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There's That Customer Service Thing Again!
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| If, as a consumer you consistently receive poor service there is just no reason at all not to find a business that will treat you better. There is no dearth of other stores, restaurants, (insert name here) who will be delighted to do business with you. And this goes for online retailers as well. |
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Phone Calls: Top 10 Tips for Professional Communication
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| Here is a summary of the best practices for excellent communications over the phone, whether you are calling or receiving a call. Study these to improve your professional tone and ability to handle difficult calls. |
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The Importance of Customer Service
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| Gary explains why the single, most important, controllable factor in the success of any business is its level of customer service, or how your customer perceives the business - and discusses how to you might focus more emphasis on this area within your business. |
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Dealing with Difficult Customers
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| Difficult customers come in different shapes and sizes. They are difficult in a number of ways. Some are angry, some can be talkative, a fair share of them are indecisive. There are plenty of people who are impatient and demanding. Gary discusses in this article how you and your staff can better deal with customer complaints and difficult customers within your business. |
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Tips for Improving Customer Service
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| In this article Gary offers 12 tips on how you can improve the customer service in your business. |
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The Art of Up-Selling
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| Gary explains what up-selling is and how you can implement it in your business. |
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Are You Focusing on the Right Thing?
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| In this article Gary explains that many companies focus on their sales and product before anything else and suggests that maybe this needs to be reviewed. |
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So do we really have control over customer service?
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| Gary discusses standards set by management and staff within a company. How they might currently be set, how they could be set, what types of measures, control or standards are important or might be important in a company. |
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The Significance of Customer Service
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| The quality of a business’ customer service to its customers is one of the most visible and significant aspects of organisational performance. Many organisations however find customer service to be one of the most challenging and neglected areas of management. Gary discusses in this article the significance that customer service has to the success of a business. |
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Setting the Pace for Delivering Outstanding Service
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| This article shows you how to do things differently than your competitors and earn the business from your loyal clients and customers. |
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Going the Extra Mile to Earn Your Customers
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| Learn how one business person went the extra mile to earn a loyal life-time client. |
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How Tech Firms Miss Marketing Opportunities
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| Many tech firms put a lot of emphasis on their technology and not enough on the service that goes with it. By doing this they’re missing out on a chance to differentiate themselves and including sales-talk that’s meaningful to the end-user. |
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Home Business Opportunity - Staying Competitive
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| Your home based business opportunity investment requires that you have a comfort level in your role as a business person. If you are not comfortable in your ownership role or if your business is not one that excites and motivates you then it will be difficult for you to be competitive. If you have a business that you are extremely passionate and motivated about, then you will be more inclined to focus on being competitive with your home based business opportunity. |
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7th of the 10 Kurlan Sales Management Functions
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| There isn't a person in the company who must work more on developing relationships than an individual in a sales management role, whether it be a line level sales manager or the World Wide VP of Sales. But developing a relationship does not mean that one should become friends. |
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"Don't Look for Customers, Look for Fans"
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| What level of customer service are you operating on? Find out here and how you can transform ordinary customers into diehard fans. |
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Stop Hiding from Your Buyers
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| Could it be you're inadvertently ducking your customers? This thought-provoking article may open your eyes to how buyers view you. |
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Cheap 800 Numbers for Small Business
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| It used to be that in order to have an 800 number you had to be one of the big boys in the world of business and those with a small business were simply out of luck. Not so these days and now more than ever there are an increasing number of cheap 800 number providers for small businesses to choose from. |
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From Ichiban to Kaizen
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| This article describes how the Japanese were masters of customer care in the late 1990's and early 21st century. Take a leaf out of their book and apply the 7 principles to your own business. |
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Intelligent Disobedience
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| If you've ever seen a guide dog working, you'll know why they're the best example of empowered working you can find. It's because they are trained to disobey intelligently. Find out more here. |
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The Five "Be's" of Customer Service
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| Get Customer Service right with these 5 simple practices. |
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The Deficit vs. the Investment in Business
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| One of the issues that comes up from time to time is the idea of deficit vs. investment. What this means is that a person spends their money at your organization in some way, shape or form. When the person does that, they have made an investment and therefore can be of the mindset that you are now in deficit with them. They have provided you with income so now they have a different access level. |
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How to Stop Making Your Customers and Clients Look Stupid
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| Many businesses and organization make their customersand clients look stupid by not communicating how to properly do business with their organization. |
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Be Nice to Your Customers
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| Too often businesses penalize their customers and clients by telling them what they can't do. Why not tell them what they can do to do business with you? |
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Excellence on a Small Scale
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| Excellence isn't limited to the Fortune 500. Often, the best experiences are in the smallest places. |
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A Reliable Predictor of Job Performance
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| Predicting who will be a top performer is the Holy Grail of the hiring process. There are so many variables that drive job success, however, that hiring managers frequently drop any pretense of a scientific approach and end up trusting their gut. Unfortunately this can reject viable candidates and produce a "cloning effect" (hiring in your own image). |
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Choosing a Small Business Web Host
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| Alright, so you've got your website ready to go and now you only need to figure out which small business web host to go with. There are so many small business web hosting companies out there today that you can literally go nuts trying to figure out which one is the best for you. But choosing the right small business web host right out of the gates will save you time and headaches going forward. |
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How Beliefs Can Sabotage the Sale
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| Many times as sales people, our personal beliefs can get in the way of our success regardless of what we are selling and at what price.....read on.. |
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What is Attraction Marketing?
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| Attraction marketing is a method of selling, but one that offers a more personalized approach in such a way as to build trust from the potential buyer, investor or business owner. Whereas in a traditional marketing method, sales agents are persistent and ever "selling" to the potential buyer, attraction marketing allows the buyer to come into the sale on their own. This method is most successful because people just do not like being sold to. You do not like to sell and prospects do not like to be sold to. |
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Customer Service Starts with a Can Do Attitude: Five Secrets to Winning, Creating Repeat Customers
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| Whether you work in a restaurant or office environment, serve internal or external customers, or work in an environment that expects results, the following are five essential secrets to developing a "can do" customer service attitude and creating repeat customers.
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Social Media and Customer Service How The Disconnect Continues
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| Social media and customer service for many businesses have become integrated partners. Yet there is still a disconnect for many small businesses to even those crazy busy sales people. |
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10 Ways to Differentiate Your Customer Service & Make Your Clients Actually Feel Valued
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| Provide high-quality customer service to ensure loyalty of your current customers and also capture the attention of your future customers.
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Is Your Management Causing Employee Issues and Slow Business Growth?
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| Employee issues are most often symptoms of inconsistent or failing management; deal with supervisor/manager competency and impact and you not only have engaged employees but also an effective, productive and efficient organization.
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Kudos and Demerit Points in Customer Service
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| Amazing customer service can and does make the difference in our challenged economy. |
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Making Momma Proud
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| Three Tips to Becoming Your Customer's Favorite Rep
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So I Got Mad and Threw It Away!
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| Your clients and prospects have very short attention spans. They want what they want and they want it now. If you make them a promise (like offering a particular article on the cover of your magazine) you need to deliver on that promise quickly, or you risk losing their attention.
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They'll No Longer Pay For Botched Surgeries
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| So what does this have to do with your business? Unfortunately, everything. You see, workmanship and service is so poor today, it's almost become the norm. It's become expected. |
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5 Ways Through Which Virtual Services Can Help You Engage And Retain More Customers
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| Engaging and retaining customers are the two vital keywords for any business. Most entrepreneurs look for and engage every available option to make this happen. Some options however prove more fruitful than others and one such option which has recently proved to be doubly beneficial for small businesses is “virtual services”. Let’s take a look at how virtual services can help you at engaging and retaining customers. |
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Dramatically Improve Customer Loyalty By Flawlessly Executing the Basics
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| Are you engaged in a lot of sparkle to delight your customers? Maybe it is time to shine up the basics and reduce all the glitz? |
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Be a Sales Rock Star: Something for Nothing
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| When was the last time you gave a client something for nothing? If such a generous thought hasn’t crossed your mind in a while, you may be missing out on an opportunity to do a good deed while staying on the person’s radar. The simple act of giving may even increase the value of your business. What’s even more amazing is that some of the most valuable gifts and services are intangible, so they won’t cost you a penny. Providing a small, added service at the right time will set you apart in your client’s mind.
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Sales Success: Do You Want Fries With That?
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| When you order a burger and the salesperson asks “Would you like fries with that,” you’ve experienced a marketing tactic called cross-selling. This strategy encourages customers to purchase additional products and services that are related to the item they are already buying. Cross-selling doesn’t just work with fast food; it’s also a highly effective technique for any type of sales. Here are a few ideas to help you achieve cross-selling success:
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The Sales Force and Beyond- Customer Impressions
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| What sort of impression do your sales people make on clients and prospects? Who has contact with those people after your sales people? How are those interactions affecting your customer retention? |
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10 Ways to Secure Your Customer's Satisfaction
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| Satisfied customers are our best advertisements so be sure to treat them all as you would want to be treated. Customers are intelligent individuals and need to be regarded as such. Doing this will bring your business to new levels! |
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Don’t tell me it’s out of your control
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| ‘It's out of my control.' ‘I can't do anything about it.' ‘I'm just the sales person.'
Sales people who sell in equipment and service contracts take note. This story is about you and your responsibility to the customer for the life of the sale not just the initial sale of the machine and the signing of the contract.
The quotes above are what I heard this week from a sales person from a well-known equipment manufacture who sold us a complete equipment and service package 18 months ago. It certainly wasn't what I wanted to hear. Without going into too much detail we have had the ‘printer from hell'. |
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Classes to Motivate and Manage a Team:
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| Team management courses will focus on skills to help the team building.
In all team building, training seminars, managers need to develop a course of team dynamics and also learn how to use the dynamics of their team as a tool to improve communication and performance.These classes train members how to use many techniques to motivate and create team unity. |
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Make it a good news story
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| As a Small Business owner operator, business is often personal. So what happens when our business or we as the business owner ‘stuff up’? Because it is personal, do we take it as a reflection on our own character? Do we bury our head in the sand and pretend that it didn’t happen? How do we deal with it when there isn’t an organisational structure to hide behind? It can be quite challenging.
I think that ignoring the problem is the worst thing you can do. A better approach is to acknowledge your shortcomings and try to turn a negative story into a good news story. Here are some recommendations on how. |
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How To Use Database Marketing To Skyrocket Your Online Profits
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| Database Marketing is the gathering and storing of specific information about your prospects or customers. This information is usually stored in a database program on your computer. You would then use the information to market and advertise to them. It can save you time and money because you can target your promotional efforts to your best prospects or customers.
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Online Business Opportunities - You Cannot Get Rich Over Night
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| Even though it is absolutely possible to make a lot of money on the internet, it takes time to build a successful business online. There is so much to do and learn before you can expect to see any significant results with your new business. |
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Choosing the Best Business Website Builder
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| These days it is imperative that any business has an online presence. And if you are like a lot of up and coming businesses you cannot afford to pay thousands of dollars to someone to design a website for you, so now you must choose the best business website builder that will suit your needs. This means you will be the sole creator of your website. It will be your ideas that need to be put into action and since you will be the designer of the site you have to make sure that you go with a business website builder that is both user friendly and reliable. |
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Eight Ways to Engage Employees and Power-Up Performance During a Recession
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| Imagine a workplace in which employees feel important and listened to…Now stop imagining it and CREATE it!
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Affordable 800 Number Service Provides Effective Marketing
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| Having an 800 number for your business is one way to improve your professional image and inspire customer confidence. |
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Police Customer Service
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| While customer service is my normal focus for this article, I have struggled with the term for many years. I don't see why we term Customer Service as a process. I believe if we respect each other, we can service people by treating them the way we would like to be treated. Now with the Insurance companies lacking in the ‘CS' training department, spare a thought for the senior executives of each of those companies. I wonder what they would do if they didn't receive the promised bonus, of at least hundreds of thousands at the end of the coming financial year. Hmmmm? Would they consider that a tragedy? YOU BET!
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A rise in Customer Service?
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| One great thing that I noticed in this Economy is the level of customer service has increased. My wife Mary actually noticed. |
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Power to Your People
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| Once you apply what's in this article, you'll have a highly motivated team who respect and trust you as a manager. |
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Creating Your Unique Value Proposition
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| Defining your value proposition is the first step in clearly identifying how your products and services are different from your competition. This article gives strategies on developing and defining your unique value to prospects and customers. |
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Bridges and Walls
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| Each time we interact with another person, we are given the opportunity to build a bridge or a wall. There are no neutral meetings among people. Each contact either builds up or tears down the relationship.
Recently, I had the opportunity to have breakfast and lunch in the same hotel dining room on the same day. During breakfast, it was a bit crowded and the food was somewhat slow in coming; however, the waitress was polite, pleasant, and professional. She inquired about me and the purpose of my trip. She seemed to genuinely care. I was left with a very positive impression of what otherwise could have been a mediocre to poor experience.
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Energy Vampires Are Sabotaging Your Organization
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| The search for external power has created the fears, habits and perceptions that set individuals and corporations against each other. It is the same struggle that creates conflict, chaos and wars. |
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GFC – Time to cut costs and jobs or time to invest in your business?
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| The studies show that the companies that recover quickest from a recession are those that didn’t lay everybody off when the going got tough but that invested in their customer relationships and in growing their market share.
(Source: Study by Bain & Company – Article by Robert B. Miller, Founder Miller Heiman. Read the whole article at the Miller Heiman website).
Robert says “A slow market is the time to consider doubling down on sales resources |
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Answering Service Customer Service Agents
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| In the answering service industry, the operators are also customer service agents.
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The Case for Training and Development NOW!!
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| It is sure easy to delay, defer and cancel training programs in this economy. As a lot of training professionals will tell you, it is one of the first line items to be axed from any budget.
Unfortunately, reductions in training also carry a significant penalty. It will prolong the length of time needed to recover from a downturn. It will limit the ability to capitalize on the faltering of competitors (in fact, they may prey on you). It will reduce your ability your ability to perform at the high levels required when staffing is cut. It will harm your ability to attract and retain good talent when the economy recovers. |
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The Rules Apply
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| Success and happiness in life come when we begin to understand that the universal rules apply to us.
Remember when you were a teenager? You were never going to get old. The concept of being 30 was so foreign to you as to not have meaning. Then, before you know it, you are 30, but you are certain that you'll never be as old as 40, etc. I can remember being a small child and unaware that the law of gravity did, indeed, apply to me. A few bumps and bruises later, the reality became clear.
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Your Customer's PIR: Price Investment Ratio
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| If your customer can't see the return on investment, they won't invest - they won't pay the price you want to get... help frame their expectations...
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Global Resort Network Plans
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| Global Resort Network is a unique vacation alternative to the traditional timeshare. Their well-trained staff will help you plan the perfect vacation or actual several vacations throughout the year. Their customer service is superb, as their primary goal is to provide their members with the best vacation resources available. With over five thousand locations around the world to select from and an unlimited supply of vacation time available, it is easy to see why Global Resort Network is quickly becoming the choice of many. |
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8 Ways to Exceed Your SEO Client's Expectations
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| The following tips are just a few of the things I do as examples of setting my service apart from the crowd. In general, the weakest areas in the Internet Marketing and Web Development business, are "Customer Communications" and "Customer Service.” |
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Rise and Shine
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| In today’s uncertain times, I constantly hear people gripe about how “business is slow, nobody’s buying” and “everybody’s cutting back.”For too long, many salespeople and business owners have been on the proverbial “gravy train.” Supply was less than demand and people got away from effective business basics. Besides, why should anyone hustle when business is lined up?
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Borrow Some Brains
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| Of course you don't have all the answers or even the right questions all the time. That's why it's great to have your "tribe". People you trust and respect who don't exactly think like you and will challenge the way you see things. They will also have different pools of knowledge that you can dive into for pearls of wisdom you would otherwise miss out on. So go ahead, borrow some brains today! |
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Handling Angry Customers
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| We’ve all had the joy of being faced with an angry customer for one reason or another. Sometimes it is something your company has done to upset him; such as a late delivery, poor service, a flawed product or a billing problem. Sometimes it’s something you did or didn’t do personally; such as forgot to follow up, messed up his order or just ignored him as a customer. And sometimes it’s something in the customer’s mind or his perception that you or your company did, when in reality it was just that his expectations weren’t set correctly. Whatever the reason, you must deal with an angry customer and do it in a respectful, professional manner. |
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How Am I Doing?
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| “How am I doing?” was a question former New York City mayor Ed Koch often asked his constituents. In an effort to make sure he was meeting their needs, he surveyed their opinions constantly. Not a bad idea since it not only gave him valuable feedback to consider but also showed everyone that he was open to getting their honest opinions so he can improve his performance. Do you do this with your customers? Chances are that you don’t, or perhaps you do it in a somewhat ineffective manner. |
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The PR Light Bulb: Generating the Best Ideas
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| When you own a small business, you always know what’s best. Decisions are on you. Operations are your kingdom. Customer service is your world. And PR, well that’s easy, right? Why would you need help? You know your business. The truth is; a little bit of external idea generation can go a long way. |
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Are you out of "touch"?
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| Touch screen computers may seem like a novelty, but tests have shown that clerks like to use them better and they contribute to faster transaction times and better customer service. |
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Coaches: Do Your Sales Skills and Behaviors Adversely Affect Your Goal to Increase Sales?
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| Does your coaching practice need to increase sales? Have you consider how your sales skills and the respective behaviors as a coach are directly tied to your ability to achieve this goal? Here are two (2) quick case studies that demonstrate this statement. |
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Customer Service Made Easy
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| There is a mystery around customer service. Most consumers think that customer service has gone downhill. Most businesspeople think that their customer service is good. How can this be possible?
If you can solve this puzzle then you are well on your way to delivering great customer service. |
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Is Your Brand Strategy Helping Your Brand Image? 6 Ways to Tell
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| There's nothing wrong in being optimistic about your company's health, but skepticism can be a good thing as well. When it comes to the wellbeing of your business image, maintaining a realistic and workable brand strategy should be first and foremost on your list of things to do. If it's not, then you may be in trouble, and it may be time to examine whether your marketing efforts are reinforcing your brand's strengths. |
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Employee Review Writer
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| Writing an effective employee performance appraisal |
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Increase Your Focus
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| Unable to concentrate on the task at hand? Don't waste work time with daydreams or frazzled thoughts. Here's how to increase your focus and get back to business.
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How can you think inside the box?
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| When all of those creativity people are screaming, "You gotta think outside the box" I tell people to start by thinking inside the box. Inside the box means doing something with what you already have. |
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Before You Jump Ship: Four Responsibilities to Consider Before Starting Your Own Business
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| You've heard it before: starting a business can be one of the most difficult yet rewarding things you will ever do. Considering these four responsibilities before you start a company will help minimize the difficulty and enhance the rewards. |
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I’m Righteous about My Customers
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| Today I want to chat a little bit about the status quo Gravity of crappy customer service we all seem to be experiencing. This is a different kind of Gravity - it holds businesses back, and it also holds customers down. It throws a big wet blanket over buyer and seller, industry by industry. |
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What do You Deserve?
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| This week I have been talking about customer service and our expectations, and my own experiences. Today I want to share a lesson I learned as I evaluated my own behavior patterns when it comes to selecting vendors and their service levels. |
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Adopt a People-Centric Approach to Improve Customer Satisfaction and Profitability
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| Satisfied employees are a critical contributor to customer satisfaction... prepare and support your employees to provide outstanding service and your customers will reward your efforts.
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Small Business Growth Quiz – 7 Market Focused Questions You Must Ask To Help You Grow
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| Stop thinking like a small business owner... here are 7 Questions to think about and respond to when planning for Business Growth
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The Trusted Sales Authority
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| Become the trusted authority by out caring the competition and become customer obsessed. Individuals and organizations with low levels of emotional intelligence can not do this. Consumers would pay 5 to 25% more to ensure a superior customer experience (Customer Service Impact 2010 Report, published by RightNow).
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What Is Network Marketing?
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| If you have been on the internet for more than a day, you have heard of network marketing. Network marketing involves one person selling the product of another person for a percentage of the sale and then signing up others to do the same thing underneath you. A common example in the real world would be Avon or Mary Kay. These are termed direct sales but they are all from the same family. |
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Downturn Can-do: Think Upturn Prospects
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| Talking to salespeople, there seems to me to be an air of futility about at the moment, about prospecting for new customers and new business. While It may be easy to find reasons to be despondent, allowing yourself to feel and behave in this way, what ever the evidence is actually counter productive. |
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Call centers do more then answer calls Importance of call centers to business
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| Learn how call centers are more important to a business then most think. Call centers effect sales and repeat business and more. |
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Prospecting Call
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| Calling Customers Who Just Made a Purchase is So Valuable That it Can Literally Double A Small Businesses ROI Overnight. Remember it is ten times less expensive to sell and existing client, than to obtain a new one. |
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Post Sale Follow Up is really an Opportunity to Sell More Product
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| Many valuable opportunities to make more money are lost when we don't use the phone to follow up after a sale or purchase. Finding out if the buyer is happy is a great idea anyway, but here are a few brief tips on converting those existing clients to more sales. |
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Sell Your Business Reputation To Web Users
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| All Internet Marketing and Marketing Plans Should Involve the Phone as Part of the Strategy. There are millions of people who won't or don't buy unless they know something about the company. |
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Making Outbound Customer Service Calls
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| Converting Customer Service Calls to More Opportunities is vital in a recession, and any time. Learn a few tips on this valuable resource. |
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Some sales managers are Idiots
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| Sales Managers don't learn from the success of others. Probably laziness is the reason because we all know what they should do. |
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Improving the bottom line
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| Within 100 days it is possible to achieve outstanding improvements to revenues and profits. Organisations have increased revenues by as much as $27 million in this time and both large and small organisations have proved that the results are sustainable. The key lies in the way that we lead - moving to a leadership approach that is based on engaging people both within and outside of the organisation. |
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A Proven Sales Process Should Educate First, and Entertain a Distant Third
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| Are your marketing activities focused on wining and dining your potential customers or educating them? Today, education must come first beginning with your own education and then educating your customers. |
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Where To Find Home Employment Opportunities
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| Are you one of the hundreds who are looking for a work from home opening? There are many sites on the net that claim to offer work to people who want to work from home. But you should know the right places to begin your search. It's likely that at first you will come across scams, so be meticulous in making your choice. Many of these sites appear to be legal work sites but read them carefully. |
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The Customer Service Satisfaction
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| A healthy business knows how to effectively cater to their customers in the general interest of business financial stability that is constantly intertwined with above average customer satisfaction.
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Developing Excellent Customer Service
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| Did you ever have a situation where you were just “wowed”? I mean simply blown away by impeccable and far-reaching customer service. With so many vendors and increased competition customer service is required for every company. |
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Excel in Customer Service. Do you Want to Keep or MAKE History?
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| Recently I had the opportunity to stay a few days in Philadelphia. While there, a group of us decided to have dinner at a unique, historical, tavern. The atmosphere was haunted by the steps of George Washington as his group sauntered outside after dinner while the band set up to play at the ball celebrating the signing of the Declaration of Independence. Everything surrounding us had been replicated in great detail. Time was even taken to create period costumes for our "servers" of the meal. They were intent on keeping history. We were so excited and awed to be able to mingle and chat in such an inspiring room---and then came the "yesbuts".
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How to Turn Back-of-the-Register Cashiers Into Front-of-the-Register Sales People
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| Do your team members' feet seem permanently glued to the space directly behind the cash registers? Do they use that space to gossip, lurk or hide? How to you turn back of the register cashiers into front of the register sales people? First...it's all about attitude. "I'm not really a sales person" "I don't like to talk to strangers" "I'm really fast just ringing up sales".
That's an attitude you've got to nip in the bud. Of course you would have used the DISC personality tool in your interviewing process so that you know what drives and motivates each team member, who's a natural sales person, and who will need coaching. You didn't? Then let's start from who you already have on your team and work on making better choices in the future with bet |
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How to Increase Sales Is Process Driven and Begins with Existing Customers Not New Ones
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| So you want to know how to increase sales? Maybe you are looking in all the wrong places as that old song goes. Have you considered revisiting your existing customers to begin a process to help them grow instead of focusing on your sales growth? |
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Why Affiliate Marketing Is A Great Online Business Idea
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| Affiliate marketing is one of the most popular online business ideas due to the fact that it is beneficial to both the merchant and the affiliate marketer in so many ways. |
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Goals – the key to successful meetings
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| Clear goals for a meeting make it more successful |
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All Managers Are Customers Too
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| Whatever business you are in, you will find that there is one key cause of your success.
How your customers experience your business and service.
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Making Money through Affiliate Marketing Programs Tips and Tricks
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| Affiliate marketing is a popular and undeniably known as one of the best methods of promoting web businesses online. It is a modern variation of the practice of paying finder's-fees for the introduction of new clients to a business The merchant pays the affiliate a commission for generating leads, clicks or sales for its product or service. |
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Website Role In A Brick-And-Mortar Business
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| Website is not a substitute for old fashioned foot traffic and many people still seek human help and customer service, but small business owners should use their website to complement their business. |
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Customer Service isn't Dying: Business Life Support & Life-Saving Tips (1)
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| Not all business policies are good for the customer, or the business. |
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Doing business from the customer's perspective
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| Customer-centric organizations and individuals have always been more successful in starting and growing a business. Almost every company has some reference to "our customers" in their mission or vision statement. But few actually follow through on those promises because they try to be interesting to the customers rather than INTERESTED IN their customers. Here is a quick little guide to help you align with your potential customer's various points of view. |
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Branding Fiasco Better be who you say you are!
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| Our experience as customers offers great instruction into the concept of branding. Join Eileen as she takes an unforgettable journey through "voice mail heck" while trying, in vain, to give a company more of her business! |
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Conquering the Counter Conundrum
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| Counter sales personnel face many of the same issues that inside sales and customer service (IS/CS) people face. In fact, the counter sales life becomes one of juggling several balls in the air at the same time and becoming skilled at multi-tasking. Dealing with "will- calls," customers at the counter, inbound phone calls, picking and packing at times and demanding sales representatives create quite a challenge for the professional counter person. More importantly, this counter conundrum puts customer retention and value at risk. |
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The Importance of an Effective Orientation
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| An orientation is merely an introduction of your company to the new employee and of this new person to your business; your clients, products and services, and the way you conduct business. Many new employees become frustrated and decide that accepting the job offer was a mistake because you, the new employer did not take the time to orient him or her to the new job. |
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Customer Service – How you doing?
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| Does the way you treat your customers stand out. I mean stand out in a positive way so that the customer will tell others about it. In a positive way that the clients keep thinking about it. In a memorable way that they cannot get it off their minds. |
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Marketing Plans Help You Make Your Mark and Increase Success from the Start
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| Techniques to Help you Plan |
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Part 1: Behind Every Customer Complaint, a Silver Lining
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| Customer complaints are a fact of business life. It doesn’t matter whether you have 15 or 1,500 employees, whether you operate strictly online or with a brick-and-mortar presence, or whether your primary customers are Millennials or Baby Boomers. Ultimately, it doesn’t even matter how well-crafted your products or services are. Each customer has a different perspective and varying needs, meaning that complaints are inevitable in any industry. |
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