Sam Miller asked:


To determine how a company is performing in terms of customer service, some customer service measurements are used regularly. These measurements are designed to assess how satisfied customers are with the services provided by a company.

Customer service is commonly defined as a series of activities that are organized to increase customer satisfaction levels so that a product or service will exceed customer expectation. Customer service may be extended in an automated manner through self-service means like support Internet sites, or by persons like sales and customer service representatives. Usually, the main basis of customer service is customer data collection or demographics. Today, a wide variety of customer service tools are now available. Aside from support websites, databases that determine individual customer preferences and buying patterns and specialist software are now used. Moreover, companies also have come up with new ways to capture feedback from customers. A few of these new feedback channels include mobile email and text messages. By knowing the perceptions and opinions of customers, companies are able to find ways to enhance the quality of the services they provide as well as improve the experience of their customers.

Several companies have integrated Customer Relationship Management (CRM) technologies to their operations. CRM is a multifaceted process that allows companies to have better knowledge of the needs, wants, and buying patterns of their customers. By making these data available for customers, companies are better able to anticipate the needs of existing and prospective customers. However, CRM initiatives should be aligned with customer-based strategies, as this technology will be useless if its implementation ends up with its installation. CRM usually supports several business processes including sales, marketing, and customer service. This technology enables a company system to compile a customer’s contact history and allows customer service representatives to retrieve these data when needed. By keeping tabs of a customer’s contact history, customers would no longer need to disclose the subject of his previous interactions with a company customer service representative.

Setting customer service standards is a crucial step in assessing the quality of service provided to customers. When setting these standards, managers and other mid-level managers should make sure that they are realistic. These standards should not be too low for these would just encourage complacency and idleness. At the same time, they should not be too high that they are impossible to achieve. Moreover, the company must determine the standards that they need to measure and the most efficient way to measure them. When establishing measurements, it is recommended that managers determine why key customers patronize their product or service instead of the competition. Also, obstacles that hinder the company’s internal customers, or employees, from providing quality customer service should be identified. Processes that are critical for product and service delivery should also be regularly evaluated so that bottlenecks are eliminated early. Lastly, there should be balance between production cost, product or service quality, and cycle time. When fully and effectively utilized, customer service measurements will be instrumental for companies to achieve higher profit margins.

Sam Miller asked:


Customer service metrics are performance measures that will aid the company in realizing profits with every customer contact. With the right system and adequate employee training, profiting from every revenue opportunity would not be a problem.

Customer service, or client service, refers to the services accorded to customers before, during and after a purchase. These may come as a series of services that are meant to improve the customer satisfaction level of the target market. These supplemental services may be provided by employees like sales or service representatives or they may be provided by automated devices like self-service Internet sites and Integrated Voice Response (IVR) devices. As a response to tighter competition, a company gain competitive advantage by providing superior customer service. Recent advancements in technology have made it easier for companies to provide customer support to their customers. Some of the most common customer service tools used by companies are support websites, live chats with technicians, customer preferences databases, service levels specialist software and call centers. Companies have also devised various ways of obtaining customer feedback to help them improve their products and services.

Various research undertakings have shown that good customer service is instrumental to having more loyal and happier customers. These studies also show that with satisfied customers come happier employees. Potentially, these two conditions will lead to increased profits and revenues because satisfied customers tend to increase their purchases and make recommendations to other people. Most customers appreciate having vendor support after spending their money on a product or service. Most companies provide this kind of support through face-to-face interactions like email, telephone calls, and chat. Often, the customers choose which interaction channel they are most comfortable with. Call centers or contact centers are often hired to provide this kind of customer support. Companies that are not capable of providing customer service often take advantage of outsourcing. To minimize operating costs, other companies use offshore call centers that usually operate outside of Europe and North America.

When asking about customer service standards that make some call centers stand out, replies such as, “Our target goal is to have 80 percent of calls answered within 30 seconds” or “We strive to respond to all customer requests within 24 hours” are very common. Indeed, customer service standards may differ from company to company depending on the call center capability and the interaction channels used. However, the bottom line of these services is that they enhance the experience of the customers with a specific brand. The interaction becomes an extension of the company’s relationship with the customer. In order to do this, employees should be properly trained so that they can effectively address the various concerns and problems of the customers.

To assess the effectiveness of the services provided to customers, managers use customer service metrics. These metrics will serve as performance indicators so that the company will know what needs to be improved and what needs to be maintained. Among these metrics, fast customer service resolution (FCR) rate stands out because of its correlation with customer satisfaction.

Howard Deutsch asked:


No one ever said providing IT customer support is easy. CTOs and IT managers are caught between a rock (their budget) and a hard place (their customers). How can IT provide consistently high levels of customer service so that they can earn high levels of IT customer satisfaction?

Impact of Ineffective IT Customer Service

Every CEO, CTO and IT manager should know the answers to the following questions, and be ready to take action if needed:

1. How effective is your organization’s IT customer support / customer service?

2. How is IT customer support impacting your company’s employees and customers?

3. If IT customer support is negatively impacting your company’s employees and customers, how is it impacting your bottom line?

4. How do you know the answers to the above questions?

5. What can we do to significantly improve IT customer service / IT customer support?

Impact on IT Customers – Ineffective IT customer service negatively impacts the productivity and effectiveness of IT customers (your company’s employees) while they are waiting for resolution of their problem or for an answer to their question. In many organizations this is a very significant drag on productivity and profit.

Impact on Your Company’s Customers – Your company’s customers, who rely on your employees to provide them with efficient sales and customer service transactions, and consistently high levels of customer service are also impacted when systems are down or responding slowly, and when your employees are not able to serve customers well or answer their questions because of technology problems.

Impact on In-House or Outsourced IT Staff – Ineffective IT customer service also impacts the productivity of the IT staff. IT customers often encounter the same IT problems over and over again, sometimes for months or years. Besides being frustrating and wasting time for IT customers and in some cases external customers, IT staff spend countless hours responding to recurring IT problems, often because no one is willing to fix the cause of the problem.

The Solution – How to increase IT customer satisfaction and IT performance

One of the most effective ways to increase IT performance and IT customer satisfaction levels, regardless of IT budgets, is to conduct IT customer satisfaction surveys and to take action on the survey results. The process is simple: conduct IT customer satisfaction surveys, analyze the results, share the survey results with in-house or outsourced IT managers and staff, establish IT SLA’s (service level agreements), create and implement action plans to increase IT service levels, then conduct ongoing/periodic IT surveys to measure progress and keep taking action to continuously improve service levels. Try it, it works!

Actual Comments from an IT Customer Satisfaction Survey

The following anonymous comments are from the first IT Customer Satisfaction Survey we conducted for a company with over 700 employees. While IT customers shared a significant number of positive comments, the sample negative comments presented here illustrate the impact of ineffective IT customer support on IT customers. These comments are typical of comments we often see at other significantly larger and smaller organizations.

The IT Help Desk is no help. Desk side support is usually delayed because they do not receive info from Help Desk in a timely manner.

Keep in mind that when we receive a ticket # and it takes about 2 to 3 hours for someone to take care of it and we can’t use our computer, that’s not productivity at all.

Experience with help desk very discouraging

Some techs are good, some are not. Some are very hard to understand due to heavy accents.

Would be nice to have longer IT Help Desk hours for us west coast folks.

Often takes 10 minutes on hold

Slow phone answering

Problem with connecting from home is still not solved. Given the same instructions 3 times

VERY DISSATISFIED

I can’t understand most of the people who answer the phones.

Usually good attitude with clear lack of knowledge on how to solve anything.

Depends on who you get. Some are good, others are not.

I have a ticket for which the IS desk continues to ignore my help requests. The ticket has been open for over a month.

High variability in quality of help desk personnel. Two are great, most others are not.

They are programmed to try certain things and don’t always ‘hear/listen’ to what you are saying.

Sometimes it’s difficult to understand the technician (language) and do this over the phone

Over 7 reminder emails and phone calls requesting assistance in completing my ticket. Yet, they have not been of any help.

For the most part, I have found the Help Desk people to be clueless about anything other than a technical issue with the PC itself. With problems with software or system access or availability, they were no help. They handle our work order numbers, but response time on those “tickets” is pitifully slow. I have all but given up on using the Help Desk as a result of my experiences.

The most common response from the Helpdesk is re-boot. When I get that response I hang up on them.

One request is still pending, I have not received any follow-up in weeks and this is the 2nd time I am calling about the same issue. The “fix” they tried last time did not work so I opened a new ticket.

There are times they are not able to help – therefore frustration sets in.

There have been instances where my issue has taken 2-3 attempts to fix over the phone before sending deskside support.

Half of my inquires were never responded to.

Tries too many things and doesn’t solve my problem in the long run.

Sometimes good, sometimes bad

Very good at issuing tickets but that’s about it.

Don’t usually call back as I am in the department, I go to the source (Alex or Chris) to find out about my ticket number.

Resolution is much more preferable to accurate and/or timely status updates.

Once the ticket is “routed” to an individual deskside technician, the IT Help Desk tends to act like it is out of their hands.

It seems as though technicians are only concerned with closing out the ticket quickly, before they know if the problem is actually resolved.

Issued new ticket after closing pending unresolved ticket

They have not even followed up once on my several emails and phone calls requesting help on the open ticket.

They follow-up but don’t solve problems.

Usually there is no follow up, and I get notices that tickets are closed way past the time of the issue.

I have a ticket that’s been open almost a week, and no one from the Help Desk has called me to see why.

Overall completely helpless.

I try to avoid calling whenever possible.

Depending on who answers the phone will depend on the service you get – not always consistent.

Never resolved

Most cases need to be put on hold or called back

No follow-up, so I gave up.

There are way too many issues/requests here that require me to involve my manager. He’s busy and should not be bothered with these types of requests. For example, upgrading to a newer version of a software application that is needed to do my job. This type of approval is unnecessary and an inefficient use of everyone’s time.

When they come across an issue that they do not understand or know how to handle they leave the claim open and then just close it, rather than figuring out the issue.

Train all your employees on better customer service. To have tickets that have not been answered or continue being ignored. It is of great trouble to those who depend on the help desk to get their job done right.

The hardware setup process for on-boarding employees needs to be revamped. It should all be done ahead of time, not the start day.

The ticket system is close to worthless. I don’t recall ever receiving an update to the status of a ticket, and usually the tickets are closed out long after the problem is resolved.

Get back to clients to let them know if help desk has passed the issue onto someone else. Usually I wait one week and then have to call back and then help desk often says “oh, we sent that to XXXXXX, I’m surprised no one has contacted you”. That happened to me 3-4 times.

Extend your hours on weeknights to midnight. You should also be available on weekends. Field sales need that support!

 

Pramila asked:


 

The ‘Global Shared Services Center’ of a Fortune 500 organization approached MMM Training Solutions to help them with a customer services training intervention that would not only improve basic customer handling skill sets but also help facilitate a change in the mindset of their employees toward becoming more customer service oriented as individuals and as an organization.

 

By working in coordination with the HR, Operations and Quality teams of the client organization, MMM Training Solutions demonstrated clearly the benefits of customer service training. We also facilitated a 20% improvement in the customer service skill sets of various teams.

 

For the purposes of this case study, our focus will be on the customer service training intervention we undertook for the IT services and Helpdesk Support team.

 

Challenges Faced:

The client outlined to us that the major challenge that they faced was that most of their IT Services and Helpdesk employees were not customer service oriented. Although, they possessed good technical skills they just had not been able to see the importance of customer service as they were dealing with ‘internal customers’ i.e. employees of the parent company, who had no one else to turn to for their IT support needs.

 

They wanted us to help instill a professional approach to customer service, problem solving and call handling as part of the IT Helpdesk operations. This included:

Change in mindset toward a ‘culture of customer service’ Politeness and courtesy when speaking to customers Using the right telephone etiquette Using the right e-mail etiquette Taking ownership Dealing with different types of customers

 

Pre-training Preparation:

Prior to the delivery of our customer service training program, an in-depth study of the situation was carried out by the MMM Training Solutions Team. Our pre-training preparation focused on areas that helped gain an insight into the real nature of the problem.

 

The Training Program:

The training programs were initially conducted for five batches of participants from the voice based support operations.

 

Duration:

Each batch went through a training program that was for 16 hours split into 4 sessions of 4 hours each.

 

Training topics:

Developing a customer service mindset Understanding the elements of great customer service Understanding and managing customer expectations Call handling skills and E-mail etiquette Dealing with different kinds of customers Polite and friendly phrases to use that sound professional

 

Methodology: 

Numerous role-play simulations of customer facing situations with feedback from the facilitator and peers Group games, movie clips and case studies along with Instructor Led Training (ILT) Audio recordings of sample calls that were categorized as ‘good’ calls and ‘bad’ calls

 

Post-training Intervention:

A post-training assessment was conducted one week after the completion of training for each batch and the appropriate feedback was given to the participants.

 

Results:

The result was that the participants showed an average overall improvement of 10-15% in terms of quality of performance, specifically focusing on customer service.

 

Refresher Training:

We conducted a 4 hour refresher session for each batch one month after their initial training program. This session focused on key areas in which the participants were not showing significant improvement.

 

As a result, participants showed a further 5-10% improvement in their customer service skill sets. This meant that at the end of a month participants had shown an average overall improvement of about 20%.

 

Conclusion:

The client organization was so delighted with the results that they wanted us back to conduct a ‘Level 2 – Customer Service’ training intervention to take their teams to the next level of bringing about ‘Customer Delight’.

 

We continue to work with the organization to this day. Today, we are looked at as a strategic learning partner who is helping them focus on the core of their business – developing people.

 

This business case clearly demonstrates the effectiveness of our customer service training material and programs. Kindly visit our website to download free customer service training material.

Sam Miller asked:


In the current global business scene, it is important to be highly competitive. Companies’ ability to beat and rise up from competition is considered important because revenues depend on it. Of course, it is apparent that competitive firms are more able to generate good income and profits because consumers and customers are reliant and trusting on them.

Competitiveness and good relationship with customers can be ensured by setting and putting in place good customer service practices. Good customer service levels would help your business achieve the competitiveness it needs. That is because putting into consideration the major perceptions of customers would make your company strive harder to develop good products and improve already existing products and services. To do so, you must adhere to good and working customer service metrics.

If your business has a customer service operations, you must ensure a recommended customer service metrics is in place. Usually, working customer service metrics include the following as main factors.

– Volume of customer inquiries handled per hour. This is a measure of productivity. Of course, the higher the number of customers attended to in an hour, the better. But there is one common and logical setback. If you would force your customer service representatives to take numerous and continuous calls, for sure, the quality of call service would suffer.

– Volume of customer complaints. This is not actually a direct customer service metrics but more of a performance indicator of the business and production operations. The more complaints your company receive, the more it is evident that your company has failed to be efficient in rendering and producing quality goods and services.

– Volume of resolved customer complaints. If you would run a daily tally about the volume of resolved complaints from customers, you would be able to distinguish the effectiveness of the customer service unit. In return, customer satisfaction would be boosted. Customer service metrics should always include this measure.

– Return customers volume. If customers keep on returning or buying your products, that means they are satisfied with the quality of services and products. In the customer service level, if clients keep on coming back despite their complaints, that means they realize that your business is still satisfactory.

Such customer service metrics can be considered more inclined on the quantitative side. Of course, by looking and tallying volumes of satisfied and dissatisfied customers, there are numbers involved. Quantitative metrics like the one described above are easier to handle and interpret.

However, you can also adopt and integrate within your quantitative metrics a good and working qualitative customer service metrics. A qualitative customer service metrics would take note and reflect stated opinions and overall perceptions held by customers. Most of the time, it is much more interesting to look at qualitative customer service metrics because they point more to quality issues. Interpretation would be easier and more convenient. If you would be able to look at qualitative measures and at the same time at quantitative customer service metrics, the better. Customer service metrics are a great way to evaluate the performance of helpdesk or call-center unit of any company.

Tony Jacowski asked:


Customers are demanding quality products and services again after the turnaround from the recession of the 1980s. They can no more be seduced into buying just anything through discounts and slick marketing methods. The goal in customer satisfaction lies in making customers feel that their needs have been met. Experience with Vilfredo Pareto’s 80/20 rule tells us that 80% of the value of business results from only 20% of targeted efforts. This implies that keeping your current customers happy is 8-10 times cheaper/easier than gaining new customers. Get more return on your efforts by focusing on repeat customers. Here are 5 steps you can take to keep your customers happy:

1. Put Your Customer First And Identify The Best One: Customer focus is a must to begin with and no matter what you do, you are at the service of your customer. Customer service begins with your employees following this rule. Gathering customer information like birthdays, their preferences, habits, spending profiles, etc. and acting upon it paves the way for healthy interactions with them in addition to collecting feedback about your products and services. Some companies are actually using six sigma to help achieve this systematically.

2. Keep Updating Customer Data By Staying Close To Them: Customer profiles keep changing with changes to their financial and social conditions. A change in contact details or purchase preferences comes in handy in the management of customer relationships. For example, a card sent when a customer purchases their first home is certain to please the customer. This also helps adjust products and services according to customers’ expectations.

3. Categorize Customers: You can group customers broadly by their demands, specific requirements and nature. You can start doing this by asking basic questions. As expectations vary, one single product may not satisfy everyone. Different products and services may have to be developed to meet different customer needs. Many companies have used six sigma to help achieve this.

4. Pay Attention To The Little Details: Ironing out little shortcomings is a mark of perfection and catches attention of niche customers. This little extra is the thing that makes you stand out in the crowd. Customers love to identify themselves with companies that do this.

5. Communicate Positively: Communicating to target customers need not be just about your services/products. You can communicate positively midway through the service for a tip/correction or take/give a suggestion that pleases the customer. This is also perceived as an attempt to develop personalized communication and service.

If keeping customers happy is the mantra for sustaining and growing your business, this end goal is perhaps the basic purpose of six sigma methodology which many companies have effectively used to increase customer satisfaction.

Steven Taylor asked:


Tempers flare and voices rise, but does your good customer service vanish? These are just a part of your day-to-day life in the market place in any business establishment. Customers and consumers are becoming more and more demanding. They get angry and argumentative when they are not served well by whoever is assigned to entertain them. Big and impersonal companies are sometimes finding it difficult to entertain such difficult-to-please customers and offer them good customer service. But for those small companies who have the skill to be more subjective to customers, I say they have found one of the keys to make their businesses a success.

How many times have we heard about a customer service attendant with a sour disposition entertaining the customers? And how many times have this happened to you personally? This does happen. But it shouldn’t! I was at a Western Union office recently and was waiting to get my money when I happen to hear the customer service attendant yelling at a customer to fill up a card before waiting in line to get his money. Good customer service? Not a hope! Now is that a good way to deal with the customers? Now, there are a lot of Western Union outlets scattered across the country, and with that kind of attitude, which customer would have the heart to go back!? Another example is a McDonald’s drive-thru attendant with a negative temperament. Which customer is really going to return to that outlet if they are greeted with an unpleasant, unhappy face? OK… maybe that’s a bad example – but you get my point!

Businesses have to understand that good customer service is what brings the consumers and customers back. Customer service isn’t just a job! It is a sport in the business world that entrepreneurs and employees have to master in order to attract more customers. It is a key element to win over customers and attain success over the competition. A good customer service system obtains more customers through word-of-mouth advertising. Let’s look at it this way. Take the example of the Western Union outlet. The customer the customer service attendant shouted at walked away angry and cantankerous, telling his peers or family members not to do business with that establishment again! And all because of one lousy employee with a sour disposition who didn’t know how to smile once in a while! Can you think of the money that this particular business lost because of one employee? However, if the customer service attendant was pleasant and easy to get along with, the customer would then have walked away thinking how nice it would be to do business with that outlet again. Word of mouth advertising tells people more than anything else that the service was good and the staff there were pleasant. The outlet would then have attracted more customers and more money by simply giving good customer service!

Here is the trick that the companies should apply to their businesses… They should not think that their products alone carry their business to fame. Not at-all. It is the front-line employees who the customers deal with first before they are introduced to the product. They are the ones who deal with the customers personally, and no customer or consumer would want to deal with a negative customer service. If they train well their customer service department, it might mean surpassing customer expectations and might mean more customers. Mastering this skill also means a bigger market share. But who wants just a part of it? Why not win them all? Why not get the majority or most of the market share through not only good but great customer service? A satisfied customer keeps coming back. And sooner or later, your excellent customer service will pay off and you will see it through your income.

Naz Daud asked:


Customer service can often be seen by businesses as a necessary evil, a burden on the finances and something to try to provide at minimal cost. To see it this way is, however, a gross oversight. Ask yourself what is the most important asset a company has? In almost every case it will be the customer base.

Customers make or break a company. Too few customers and no business can survive. Effective, high quality customer support can create an image for a business which sets it apart from its competitors. If you treat your customers with care, consideration and patience, providing a service which genuinely tries to help resolve concerns or issues, then customers are far more likely to return to your company time and again.

Not only is customer loyalty an issue which your service representatives can actively develop, but very often your customers are one of your strongest means to promotion. Internet technology today allows for quick and easy access to many thousands of review sites. Enter almost any company name into Google, along with words such as ‘review’ and you’re bound to find rating and experiences.

These can have a tremendous effect on how well you drive customers to your business, or drive them away. Customer service is the means by which your customers will be interacting with your business; as far as customers are concerned, your customer service is the business itself. Many large, global corporations outsource their customer support centers, and this can lead to poor quality communications. This is where smaller businesses can excel, filling the quality gap which exists.

From a customer’s perspective, very little can be as frustrating as the experience of having a highly enthusiastic, deeply personal and seemingly committed business woo you and persuade you to buy into its product or service range, only to then cut and run, leaving you in the hands of an outsourced, underfunded and less experienced customer service team. It can often feel as though the outsourced customer service team is put there as a direct barrier between the customer and the business.

Certainly it can easily be the case that customers perceive not one, but two quite distinct businesses, with the possibility of a third lurking in the background. Initially there is the friendly and courteous business, almost bending over backwards to be helpful and understanding, though once the payment has been made and the contract signed, this part of the business becomes unreachable. The customers are then transferred to a less technical, less responsive, slower and less capable business which is labeled customer service, and which pays little attention to the customer and offers little in the way of proactive help.

The two businesses appear quite distinct in character. This discovery can give rise to a previously unconsidered business element, which are those lurking behind these two faces, driving the business forward by portraying these two quite opposite and contrasting faces by way of a sales tactic. This can completely undermine any faith, loyalty or appeal generated by the first face that the business chose to portray.

This is a shame, because those few businesses that are able to maintain this same attitude through from the sales team to the customer service team are highly likely to engage customer loyalty through customer satisfaction. This in turn is likely to see customers recommending the business, leaving positive reviews on the many review boards across the internet, and helping to drive more customers to you without you even having to advertise to reach them.

Good customer service leads to satisfied customers, which can be the best form of advertising there is, simply because you can’t buy it. Granted, the extra cost of having in-house, fully trained customer service staff who are as committed and motivated as the sales staff will cost a little extra, but it is important to see this not as an extra cost, but one in lieu of your advertising costs. Good customer service is not just an end in itself, which is the mistake made by too many companies.

Good levels of service for existing customers will be highly likely to act as a form of advertising, bringing in extra revenue you would not otherwise have seen. Add to this argument the fact that bad customer service is more likely to drive not only existing customers away, but put off potential customers you might have had as a direct result of poor reviews and a low reputation, and you can see that in the long run, investing in high levels of quality within your customer service department can be seen as a solid and profitable investment if approached in the right way.

Sales people often have incentives, such as targets, number of sales per hour, and other such tables which can lead to bonuses. Customer service representatives often have no such incentives; perhaps there’s a link between the different standards of enthusiasm?

Pj Germain asked:


Becoming and staying customer-intimate requires more than building client knowledge and having expertise in re-engineering our customers business processes. We must offer more than just service. We need to maintain a broad product line that can be configured to the specific needs of a customer. It is important to know that an average product tailored to a customers very specific need is often better than the more advanced, but inflexible, product. Many times organizations are not obsessed by the leading edge; rather they embrace solid, tested products that can be tailored to fit their needs like a glove. It is important for us to produce unmatched value for our customers who do not necessarily want the very latest product – just the best result and help in obtaining it.

1. It is necessary to understand the importance of empowerment and the critical role of individual initiative. It can be summed up in a one-word motto = THINK. It is important for us to be disciplined in order to live out this motto everyday in our interactions with customers.

2. Client by client, we need to set targets for penetration, development, and growth. We need to use specific, detailed, and integrated customer data.

3. A challenge is to assemble, integrate, and retain talented people who can stay at the forefront of new paradigms and techniques that affect our customers business. Good ideas today are a dime a dozen. Brilliant concepts and practices are disseminated with stunning speed. Competitive benchmarking and best-practice studies have become standard elements in most organizations. But what is still in short supply, is the ability to effect change, to get things implemented, to make things happen. That is the value provided by being a customer- intimate company. Proof of our value is found only in results. The most cherished reward is a prize from a customer recognizing that our company has played an instrumental part in their success.

Stories abound in various companies about employees who have gone above and beyond the call of duty for their customers. An example is a story about the Four Seasons Hotel doorman who found the briefcase of a guest who had already checked out. Assuming that it contained important papers, the doorman rushed to the airport, caught the next air shuttle, and delivered the briefcase to the forgetful fellow. Heroic? Well, yes. More important, though, the story adds to the mythology that typifies the way the hotel runs. The doorman is now an icon, not just an isolated character in a crazy story. The message to employees: Four Seasons Hotel customers deserve nothing less than service that dazzles, that awes. The point is that this mythology supports a strong culture, one that tells employees: Do whatever it takes to please the customer!

Ways of Showing Customers Our Loyalty:

1. Be a Communicator

Establish an ongoing customer information system that acknowledges the need to obtain and distribute information. Explain services available to them in language they can understand.

2. Be Reliable

Take full responsibility for customer satisfaction and for the quality of the product or service provided. Be consistent and dependable.

3. Be Responsive

Show your willingness and ability to provide prompt service.

4. Be Credible

Be trustworthy. Fulfill on promises and meet every requirement. Keep confidential all critical information shared.

5. Be Accessible

Provide ease for contacting. Be available and flexible when changes are necessary.

6. Be Competent

Know and understand the customers requirements and expectations. Ask questions.

7. Be Courteous

Show respect and friendliness at all times. Be appreciative – thank them for their business, for thorough instructions about a project, for a properly prepared disk, etc. Use various means to communicate your appreciation – a verbal acknowledgment, a card or note, a small token of

thanks, etc.

8. Be Proactive

As an advocate for the customer, act as a partner and walk in their shoes. Identify potential problems and be innovative in creating options and solutions.

9. Be Professional

Appearance of physical facilities and personnel is critical as customer perceptions are easily influenced.

10. Be Committed

Our customers are our business! Be committed to their success. Treat customers like assets. Do everything possible to retain them and increase their lifetime value.

Kevin Corazza asked:


Can Poor Customer Service Lead To The Fall Of a Business?

Absolutely.

Most all marketing specialists will tell you that “The average business spends six times more to attract new customers than it does to keep old ones.” That says a lot about the importance of putting the customer first.

It has become more and more common to see customer service lacking in both small and large businesses. The business either is growing faster than they can provide training to their employees, or the company is not established on the right qualities.

This has become such a problem that there are many experts and authors that try to offer paid or free advice and tips. There is an article by Jill Homer titled “Tips for Curing Bad Customer Service”.

Jill describes the typical scene where a customer steps into a store and wants to know where to find a certain product. In the example, the employee is busy and does not want to be bothered, and so gives the customer a short answer and continues whatever she is doing without even giving the customer eye contact.

The customer kindly persists, and so with obvious annoyance in the voice, the employee begrudgingly turns around and points the customer in the general direction of the product’s location. But instead of purchasing the product, the customer leaves the store, frustrated, vowing to never return again.

Jill goes on in her article to give some tips on how to train yourself and your employees to have a different way of thinking and acting that will put the customer first.

Art Waller, Regional Department Head for Utah State University says to “Never, never, never ignore a customer”.

I can think of a lot of examples of where I was either personally given poor customer service or heard from a friend of mine about an example of poor customer service. I always check the internet reviews of any hotel before I stay there and if there are a lot of negative reviews, there is no way that I would stay there. But any business can shoot itself in the foot by providing poor customer service, especially in this day and age of the internet.

I will not point out more than a couple of examples, since I am sure we have all seen someone get burned at one time or another, but one example that I found online with a quick search online was of a customer who was cheated of their money through a company called Medtexx, where the company was unwilling to provide a refund when the customer did not like being swindled. But the company wanted to keep the money instead… which will probably lead to their eventual downfall. Apparently this person was not the only dissatisfied customer, according to the BBB reports for the past couple years. If your company or business were to be this far in the danger zone, then the best thing that you can do is to go back to those customers that you wronged and personally try to make amends and see how you can make it up to them to make them happy.

I purchased auto parts through one site on the internet where I would most definitely return, just because they bent over backwards to answer any of my questions and they even called me up to follow up with my order a month later.

One of the very most critical points of a successful business is good customer service. Utah State University showed recent findings in customer service. The average business only hears from about 4 percent of its dissatisfied customers. The other 96 percent quietly go away.

This is quite dangerous for any business because if a dissatisfied customer can not share their complaints with the business, then they will share them through other means such as friends, family and neighbors.

Statistics show that the average dissatisfied customer will tell 8 to 10 people about their problem. One in five of those will share that with 20 others. So you can see how repeated offenses of poor customer service can quickly snowball into the downfall of a business.

It does not matter if you are the owner of a large utility company, a popular soft drink company, an airline, a sports store, or of a start-up hot dog stand, customer service should be of your utmost concern. All too often, we see where an employee just decides to ignore a dissatisfied customer with the hope that it will just go away. The employee mistakenly thinks “oh well, what is the loss of one customer?” However, the problem is that poor customer service, just like good customer service, will be shared with all of their friends until the business fails or flourishes.