Customer Service Blog

Its 2008 !!

What does loyalty look like?

Good Customer Service Pays Off....

How you make them feel

Happy New Year! 

A new year is aways exciting and an opportunity for us to look back and examine our service, our successes and our mistakes.  At the beginning of every year, our company goes through an extensive planning phase for the upcoming year and it allways amazes me how we continually look at ways to improve our service and also ways to do more!  This year, like every other year we are focusing on “the customer”.  Our focus is going to be on customer retention and loyalty.  Through asking some pretty basic questions, we will challenge ourselves daily to deliver on our promise.    

One question that is taken for granted, but often not answered is……… What Have We Done for Our Customers Today? 

What does your company do after you have made the sale or taken the donation? Do you view a transaction as the start of the relationship, or the end? Do you spend as much effort to keep customers as you do to acquire them? How is your budget allocation done, more dollars to acquisition than retention?

 Once a customer purchases or interacts with your company, they have the potential to be a live “billboard” providing good or bad marketing to potential customers.  If they are happy, they tell two friends, but if they are unhappy, they will tell between 11 and 13 people. Service mishaps can be very costly to your company by destroying a potential lifetime relationship with your Customers.  Service mishaps are often perception that the customer does not feel they were heard; they were understood and worst of all that they were not respected as a customer.   How do companies avoid service mishaps?  This is a complex question, but actually quite a simple answer:

Make it easy to do business with you!    Enable communication when and how customers want; Ensure communication is consistent

Empower your customer service people to truly be the voice of your organization.  Arm them with the RIGHT information, the information needed to deliver an excellent experience; Arm them with the applications that enable them to “know” your customer and Empower them to make decisions to “wow” your customers

The nice thing is that Customers provide many opportunities for you to demonstrate that their business is important!

Listen to your Customer. Ensure customers don't just get satisfied; offer them a solution that will “wow” them. When things go wrong, this is an opportunity to demonstrate what your organization is made of; it is the time to show the secret sauce!  Empower and measure that your customer service goes above and beyond.   Think beyond the immediate cost of service and understand the real value of a lifetime customer.  After all, doesn’t it cost more to lose a customer, than to have to acquire a new one? Examine your Communication. What is the customer hearing and reading about your organization?  Is it consistent between emails, phone, products, letters and website content?  Can they expect the same service across all channels? Pay attention to “what” is being said and “how” it is being said. Get Personal.   Align your databases so your front line staff can address each customer by name and have the knowledge to make the transaction easy.   Handwritten thank-you notes and follow-up phone calls can strengthen relationships. In a world of computer-generated communication, anything with a genuine personal touch has a very high impact.   Give customers a voice, then listen.  Is measuring customer satisfaction delivering a canned survey or is it about measuring the experience the customer has had with your organization?  With customer experience technology, obtaining immediate customer feedback is not only possible, but also an absolute necessity to survive!  By measuring each communication / interaction immediately, you will be measuring the experience and be able to clearly understand what you are doing right and what needs to change.  After all….. isn’t “how we make people feel” what REALLY counts? 

Recently I wanted to read about continued efforts for victims of Hurricane Katrina, I opened a popular search engine and typed in "Hurricane Katrina Charities." I was surprised when 1,160,000 matches were returned! This led me to wonder how to choose which nonprofit organization to support out of the 1,160,000 matches that were found. Personnally,  I have donated to the same charity for many years because of a personal experience with an illness that has affected a loved one . Does everyone choose who to support this way? Do you choose a cause based on personal experience, a political belief, or a moving television commercial or is it because it was the first appeal you received in the mail?  
 
I wonder how many first time supporters to a Hurricane Katrina charity continue to donate to that charity.  I know that we have spoken about loyalty on this blog, so what does loyalty to a charity look like?

PC

Companies that understand the value in providing good customer service deserve to win!!! My remote control starter for my car wasn't working.  Rather than taking it in, I first tried changing the battery on the remote twice but it still only worked intermittently.  I happened to be driving by the local electronics store where I purchased it the other day and decided to drop in. I was in a hurry and thankfully; there was no line up. The guy behind the counter listened to my complaint and told me it would cost $60.00 to replace it.  Then he said "but before we do that, let's take a look inside because we may be able to fix it".  He opened it, soldered a couple of wires, closed it up, walked outside to my car and voila, it started right away. He looked at me, handed me his card and said "thanks for coming in to Advance, let me know if there's anything else we can help you with."  WOW!!!! Guess where we just bought our new 42" flat screen TV from...and we didn't even shop around to the big box stores.  This company understands Customer Retention and they're a winner in my books!!!

 PC

Customer Service is in everything we do.  I am always amazed when I hear stories that the service was less then satisfactory.  During a trip, I managed to have this experience.  I was skiing between Christmas and New Years  and  was staying at a hotel that was small and quaint.  In trying to get some extra towels sent to my room, the women at the front desk managed to make me feel terrible.  I heard of complaints about shortage of staff, having to wash all the towels and bedding, and even about how she doesn't get paid enough to do her job.  Now, I understand what its like to have a bad day, but this experience is exactly what customers do not want.  I heard a saying once that has managed to impact me and actually changed the way I interact with those I meet!

"People will forget what you do.......People will forget what you say.......BUT, People will never forget how you made them feel."

PC