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Customer Service Information
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Should I Have My Company Mystery Shopped? I wish I had a nickel for every time someone said to me, "Oh, you do Mystery Shopping; I always wanted to do that!" I think most people do find the thought of posing as a customer and reporting back on how they were treated, rather intriguing. But there is a lot more to it that skulking around in a trench coat and spy glass! Customer Service Consultants When all else fails in your company to meet the needs of your customer consider a customer service consultant. If you find that agents in your company are constantly having misunderstanding that result in loss of customers bring in a consultant. There are a number of resources available in books and on the Internet to help you find which consultant best suits your company. The Death of the Loyal Customer One of my classes in management focused on the repeat customer. The course stressed the importance of the repeat customer to the financial welfare of the business. We spent hours discussing ways to turn "first time" buyers into repeat customers. This is not a new concept. We've all heard the term "the customer is always right". And then there is the movie we watch every Christmas where Macy tries to out "customer satisfaction" Gimbel. I prefer to take that concept one step further with what I consider the most valuable asset of a business, the loyal customer. The Dissatisfied Customer We, as small business people, naturally dislike complaints from our clients and customers. Because we're intimately involved with our home businesses, small businesses, or freelance careers, any complaint takes on a personal commentator. A dissatisfied customer is a direct reflection on our performance and a blow to our egos. The common reaction of small business people to a consumer complaint is defensive posturing and/or avoidance. Make Sure You Get The Customer Perspective Businesses that fail, often forget to seek out the customer perspective. I have talked to some folks at businesses that were less than succesful, and when asked if they actively seek out customer comments, the answer invariably is no. Why don't they do that? Why not get the customer perspective? What Every Manager Should Know About How to Win the Loyalty of Customers Dr. Michael LeBoeuf, in his cassette album entitled, Win Customers and Keep Them for Life presents twelve principles that will transform the workplace into a customer-driven, highly motivational team. Dr. LeBoeuf's program goes like this: Profit from a Customer Service Recovery Program A client recently said to me: "Most days things seem to run smoothly; but whenever we have a customer complaint, we seem to collapse. Where are we going wrong?" First Contact: The Source of Customer Loyalty With customers being smarter, more cost conscious, more product knowledgeable and more demanding, improving customer service has become a major focus within many businesses. In Customer Satisfaction is Worthless; Customer Loyalty is Priceless, author Jeffrey Gitomer contends the real solution is shifting the paradigm away from customer service to customer loyalty. This may be the first step, but the next step is to shift the focus away from loyal customers to loyal employees. How to Retain Your Customers the Dish Network Way Customer retention is vital to a business. If you cannot retain your customers you will be continually losing current customers and always on the search for new ones. This can be very expensive. Retaining current customers means continual sales which is essential to keep your business afloat. Here are some keys to keeping your customers that can be learned from looking at the Dish Network business model. All of the World of Business Is a Stage One of the basics of acting taught to me in grade school was the important principle of "staying in character." Staying in character means holding the image and personality of the character you are assigned to portray without letting your own personality leak through. Cheap To Keep You've heard it all before when it comes to stats about customer retention. Acquiring a customer costs five to 10 times more than retaining one. Repeat customers spend, on average, 67 percent more. After 10 purchases a customer has referred as many as seven other people. Create Win-Win Deals With Your Competitors In the competitive world of the 20th century, we generally viewed competitors as the enemy. And a competitor was anyone who sold to the same target audience as us - even if they sold a different item. After all, since there was a finite group of customers and a limited amount of money, if they spent it with your competitor, there was less for you. Automating Your Customer Support My regular readers will know that one of the things I highly recommend doing with any online business is automating as many of your day to day tasks as possible. Empowering Customer Service Vital It never fails to amaze me how many companies have employees who are empowered to offer former customers wonderful incentives to lure them back, yet their customer service representatives have the ability to offer virtually nothing to convince an unhappy customer to stay. Tips for Curing Bad Customer Service Bad customer service is everywhere these days - unmanned front desks, surly servers, clueless staff, employees talking on the phone, and managers who refuse to acknowledge a customer. It's no longer an exception ... poor service has become the norm. Customer Service Has Moved Toward Customer Care As I waited for an answer to my VCR inquiry from a stereo company, the recording stated a "customer care" representative would be available shortly. At that moment, I realized it's finally catching on everywhere. With aging baby boomers, world events and additional pressures in today's society; it is "customer care" that has evolved in our economy. We have moved from a manufacturing economy to a service economy and are currently leaning towards a "servicecare" economy. As we live in a high tech-high button touch environment, many personal contacts have been decreased making each customer interaction more important than ever to corporate imagery. For example, if you call for computer tech support, the representative often makes it a point to address you by first name. If it's the bank credit card company, they may ask "How are you doing today?" This makes the customer feel less like a number and more like a human being. What Every Manager Should Know About Seeing the World from Where the Customer Is Standing It is important to remember that the customer doesn't necessarily see things in the same way we do. This point was brought home to me one day while I was shopping with my daughter, Stefanie, who was two years old at the time. Renewing Customer Loyalty Every business loses customers, but not many do much about getting them back. And that is a big mistake. Studies show that the average business looses 20 percent of its customer base each year. Quality vs. Quantity There is a battle in Call Centers. The teams are Quality vs. Quantity; two performance factors that don't seem to get along. How Not to Get Stiffed, Improving Your Collection Procedures Some businesses have slow paying customers or past due balances because they didn't "train" their customers in the beginning.
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