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Jerry Sparger asked:
Some companies can’t seem to get out of their own way. Declaring themselves customer-centric, they turn right around and design business processes along departmental boundaries, creating stovepipe operations that frustrate customers. Upon review, management discovers the company is accomplishing its internally generated goals. Yet the customers aren’t happy. People are “doing things right,” but they aren’t doing the right things to create outstanding customer experiences.
Why? Because too many companies fail to obtain meaningful customer input before designing business processes. They fail to understand which behaviors their customers value and which behaviors create frustration in the customer experience. Ultimately, senior managers must ask themselves a single question before including any given activity in their business processes: “What is the value of this activity to my customer?”
I recently asked the president of a midsize subsidiary of a large, highly visible company, what his sales agents would say prevented them from selling more. He laughed and replied, “They would say ‘us.’” When I asked what he meant, he gave me several examples; this one is very typical.
This company sells a complex technical solution, tailored to client needs. Sales and pre-sales consulting teams spend months collaborating with the customer to define a very specific, customized solution. The sales team then prices the solution and presents the “final” proposal to the customer for approval. So far, so good.
At no point in the long, complex collaboration among sales, pre-sales consulting and customer is either party’s legal team involved. The legal teams of both companies are blindsided by complex solutions that sales and the customer consider “a done deal.”
The customer’s legal department often finds real problems in the solution definition that must be corrected before approval. The vendor’s legal department, not fully understanding its role in the sales process, often adds unreasonable legalese that sometimes protects the vendor right out of relationships with customers. Failing to involve legal early in the sales process creates unnecessary turmoil for the vendor and, more importantly, the customer. This vendor is quickly earning a reputation for being difficult to work with.
Inclusion
Here’s how you fix that. You include both legal teams early in the sales process, at key steps in the process. Allowing legal to act as advisors to the sales team and customer earlier in the process helps avoid contract difficulties and keeps expectations clear. Lawyers aren’t put in a position to have to delay contract signing, and the proposed solution is more accurate. To make such an approach truly effective, senior management must ensure this change is mandated through procedures that define responsibilities, triggers of engagement and information flows for sales and legal. By including legal early in the process, you ensure that members of your legal team understand the role they play in creating an outstanding buying experience for the customer. And you help them create better contracts that protect you and establish a good relationship with your client.
This is but one simple example; every interaction with a customer has the potential to either be problematic or to delight the customer. Take the time to examine how each department—legal, sales, technical, customer service, delivery, shipping and transportation and finance and accounting—interacts with your customers.
To deliver an outstanding customer experience, ask your customers what they value the most, then design your business operations in response. Focus on doing those things well that the customer values most, and stop wasting their time and your money!
Develop your information flows, business processes and activities with customer interaction in mind and tear down departmental boundaries, improving your value to your customers, while reducing wasted activities.
The best way to discover which activities provide value to your customers is to create a detailed questionnaire for senior account managers and executives to use to start meaningful conversations with customers. This approach, rather than statistical surveys, will provide you with actionable insight into your customers’ needs. Look at each activity from the customer’s point of view. What works well? What does not? Why? Select customers of the greatest importance to you and that fit your profile of a good customer.
Armed with these two views of customer interaction, you can align your customer-impacting activities with your customers’ ideal of how they want to work with you.
Senior managers can examine how their strategic goals and objectives fit with what they have learned from their customers. This might yield some strategic changes, such as new objectives or metrics, targeted at improving customer value.
Key frontline managers and staff should work as a single team, regardless of departmental boundaries, to determine if activities are adding value; considering information flows, users, owners and timing.
Finally, any changes in strategic objectives or metrics—and any changes to process and activities—should be implemented with a communications plan. This ensures everyone understands management’s intentions and support—and that all your people understand their individual role.
Some companies can’t seem to get out of their own way. Declaring themselves customer-centric, they turn right around and design business processes along departmental boundaries, creating stovepipe operations that frustrate customers. Upon review, management discovers the company is accomplishing its internally generated goals. Yet the customers aren’t happy. People are “doing things right,” but they aren’t doing the right things to create outstanding customer experiences.
Why? Because too many companies fail to obtain meaningful customer input before designing business processes. They fail to understand which behaviors their customers value and which behaviors create frustration in the customer experience. Ultimately, senior managers must ask themselves a single question before including any given activity in their business processes: “What is the value of this activity to my customer?”
I recently asked the president of a midsize subsidiary of a large, highly visible company, what his sales agents would say prevented them from selling more. He laughed and replied, “They would say ‘us.’” When I asked what he meant, he gave me several examples; this one is very typical.
This company sells a complex technical solution, tailored to client needs. Sales and pre-sales consulting teams spend months collaborating with the customer to define a very specific, customized solution. The sales team then prices the solution and presents the “final” proposal to the customer for approval. So far, so good.
At no point in the long, complex collaboration among sales, pre-sales consulting and customer is either party’s legal team involved. The legal teams of both companies are blindsided by complex solutions that sales and the customer consider “a done deal.”
The customer’s legal department often finds real problems in the solution definition that must be corrected before approval. The vendor’s legal department, not fully understanding its role in the sales process, often adds unreasonable legalese that sometimes protects the vendor right out of relationships with customers. Failing to involve legal early in the sales process creates unnecessary turmoil for the vendor and, more importantly, the customer. This vendor is quickly earning a reputation for being difficult to work with.
Inclusion
Here’s how you fix that. You include both legal teams early in the sales process, at key steps in the process. Allowing legal to act as advisors to the sales team and customer earlier in the process helps avoid contract difficulties and keeps expectations clear. Lawyers aren’t put in a position to have to delay contract signing, and the proposed solution is more accurate. To make such an approach truly effective, senior management must ensure this change is mandated through procedures that define responsibilities, triggers of engagement and information flows for sales and legal. By including legal early in the process, you ensure that members of your legal team understand the role they play in creating an outstanding buying experience for the customer. And you help them create better contracts that protect you and establish a good relationship with your client.
This is but one simple example; every interaction with a customer has the potential to either be problematic or to delight the customer. Take the time to examine how each department—legal, sales, technical, customer service, delivery, shipping and transportation and finance and accounting—interacts with your customers.
To deliver an outstanding customer experience, ask your customers what they value the most, then design your business operations in response. Focus on doing those things well that the customer values most, and stop wasting their time and your money!
Develop your information flows, business processes and activities with customer interaction in mind and tear down departmental boundaries, improving your value to your customers, while reducing wasted activities.
The best way to discover which activities provide value to your customers is to create a detailed questionnaire for senior account managers and executives to use to start meaningful conversations with customers. This approach, rather than statistical surveys, will provide you with actionable insight into your customers’ needs. Look at each activity from the customer’s point of view. What works well? What does not? Why? Select customers of the greatest importance to you and that fit your profile of a good customer.
Armed with these two views of customer interaction, you can align your customer-impacting activities with your customers’ ideal of how they want to work with you.
Senior managers can examine how their strategic goals and objectives fit with what they have learned from their customers. This might yield some strategic changes, such as new objectives or metrics, targeted at improving customer value.
Key frontline managers and staff should work as a single team, regardless of departmental boundaries, to determine if activities are adding value; considering information flows, users, owners and timing.
Finally, any changes in strategic objectives or metrics—and any changes to process and activities—should be implemented with a communications plan. This ensures everyone understands management’s intentions and support—and that all your people understand their individual role.
- 0 Comments
- Tags: Customer Experience, Goals, Pre Sales
Randy Harmat asked:
Quite a few organizations hire employees in internal positions such as human resources, marketing, sales, facilities, cafeteria, accounting or security without adequate training in customer service skills. Generally, unless a customer complains or compliments an employee their supervisor typically assumes that everything is being done well and provides positive feedback on their performance review.
Customer Services includes small and large details such as understanding the needs and purchasing habits of the customers, responding to all e-mail and phone inquiries, human contact and conversation, taking responsibility, to celebrate little triumphs with them, commiserate in their complaints and even get to know them. These customers once made will remain loyal customers forever.
By itself customer service is too vast to handle unless you are a large business with well defined sections in your office. Outsourcing customer service can allow a small or medium business to take care of its core competencies, while the customers are professionally and satisfactorily dealt with.
Online customer service is handled by quite a lot of call centers. The need for such service arises on two accounts.
First an online business is a 24*7 business. Your customers belong to the world and there are several time zones out there! Their hours and holidays are different from yours. Remember you lose a customer to your competitor if you do not respond to their calls.
Secondly, call response needs training and expertise handling. You cannot personally attend each call. So you need to hire employees. Each employee will need to be trained in your products, their handling and customer responses. So you will need to setup an entire process. The entire procedure is very time centric. If time is at premium (as it is for most of us) outsource it to the experts. Call center employees are trained in such procedures, responses come easier to them and they are trained to present a human face to the prospect.
Outsourcing customer service may have its pitfalls if the call center and business do not work closely in tandem with each other. The outsourcing company should work with the call center hand in hand to get customer feedback. The script flow must be based on previous experience of the company. The concept of personal attention to the customer is very important for closing a call. There some guidelines to be followed for ideal customer service assistance. Some of them are discussed here.
The customer must be put first as a person. The customer should be helped to make a decision and not pushed to buy. Respect him and he will respect you in turn and come back to you.
Listen to what the customer has to say. Clarify their doubts and answer the questions. The customer service employee should always have in-depth knowledge about the product or services. If unable to respond to a query immediately take the customers contact id and respond soon. Customers always have a tendency to look for a problem solver rather than an order taker
Learn about the customer in a casual way not as a marketing survey sort of thing. The easiest way to do this is to ask for them for feedback about their experience with the company or organization.
Respect the customers time. If a customer is in hurry be fast and friendly whatever the medium. In companies where the customer profile has senior citizens may want to talk a while. Give into them. They’ll come back to you for sure. It is also important to be fast and friendly.
If promises are made, should always be kept with the customers. If not, they should be compensated.
Lastly, review and feedback go a way in improving customer service. The staff can be asked about unusual requests or difficult situations. Reviews teach many important lessons.
In addition to the above points some do nots have to be kept in mind. Pitfalls such as incompetence, disorganization, unprofessional manners, lack of standard policy, delays and unreliability lose customers. It’s said that happy customers are the best and most effective way to find new customers. Let your prospects and leads rave about your customer services.
Quite a few organizations hire employees in internal positions such as human resources, marketing, sales, facilities, cafeteria, accounting or security without adequate training in customer service skills. Generally, unless a customer complains or compliments an employee their supervisor typically assumes that everything is being done well and provides positive feedback on their performance review.
Customer Services includes small and large details such as understanding the needs and purchasing habits of the customers, responding to all e-mail and phone inquiries, human contact and conversation, taking responsibility, to celebrate little triumphs with them, commiserate in their complaints and even get to know them. These customers once made will remain loyal customers forever.
By itself customer service is too vast to handle unless you are a large business with well defined sections in your office. Outsourcing customer service can allow a small or medium business to take care of its core competencies, while the customers are professionally and satisfactorily dealt with.
Online customer service is handled by quite a lot of call centers. The need for such service arises on two accounts.
First an online business is a 24*7 business. Your customers belong to the world and there are several time zones out there! Their hours and holidays are different from yours. Remember you lose a customer to your competitor if you do not respond to their calls.
Secondly, call response needs training and expertise handling. You cannot personally attend each call. So you need to hire employees. Each employee will need to be trained in your products, their handling and customer responses. So you will need to setup an entire process. The entire procedure is very time centric. If time is at premium (as it is for most of us) outsource it to the experts. Call center employees are trained in such procedures, responses come easier to them and they are trained to present a human face to the prospect.
Outsourcing customer service may have its pitfalls if the call center and business do not work closely in tandem with each other. The outsourcing company should work with the call center hand in hand to get customer feedback. The script flow must be based on previous experience of the company. The concept of personal attention to the customer is very important for closing a call. There some guidelines to be followed for ideal customer service assistance. Some of them are discussed here.
The customer must be put first as a person. The customer should be helped to make a decision and not pushed to buy. Respect him and he will respect you in turn and come back to you.
Listen to what the customer has to say. Clarify their doubts and answer the questions. The customer service employee should always have in-depth knowledge about the product or services. If unable to respond to a query immediately take the customers contact id and respond soon. Customers always have a tendency to look for a problem solver rather than an order taker
Learn about the customer in a casual way not as a marketing survey sort of thing. The easiest way to do this is to ask for them for feedback about their experience with the company or organization.
Respect the customers time. If a customer is in hurry be fast and friendly whatever the medium. In companies where the customer profile has senior citizens may want to talk a while. Give into them. They’ll come back to you for sure. It is also important to be fast and friendly.
If promises are made, should always be kept with the customers. If not, they should be compensated.
Lastly, review and feedback go a way in improving customer service. The staff can be asked about unusual requests or difficult situations. Reviews teach many important lessons.
In addition to the above points some do nots have to be kept in mind. Pitfalls such as incompetence, disorganization, unprofessional manners, lack of standard policy, delays and unreliability lose customers. It’s said that happy customers are the best and most effective way to find new customers. Let your prospects and leads rave about your customer services.
- 0 Comments
- Tags: E Mail, Office Outsourcing, Triumphs
The Service Coach asked:
What do these companies have in common, Southwest Airlines, Neiman Marcus, Marriot, Disney, and Enterprise Car Rental? They are all customer service pioneers. Each company has forged a new path through their commitment, dedication, and innovations, to become known as leaders in delivering excellent customer service. Serving the customer is more than some fancy words on their company mission statements. Customer service truly represents the very essence of each company’s’ existence.
These companies, along with hundreds more, have already done the hard work; they have laid the ground work, set the examples, and blazed the trails for other companies to follow. They have demonstrated how to achieve success by serving the customer.
Why then, don’t all companies follow this proven path to success?
Do they not know the core principles these companies follow?
To borrow a concept from the Late Show with David Letterman, this is a top ten list of principles all companies need to implement to achieve service excellence.
Number 10: Focus – The customer should always be the number one focus of any company. All decisions, services, and products should be based upon satisfying the needs and expectations of the customers.
Number 9: Take Action – The best laid plans will never come to life, without action. If you are going to talk-the-talk, then you must walk-the-walk. When companies, which brag about the importance of customer service, fail to deliver outstanding service, customers and employees lose faith and trust in them.
Number 8: Create Happy Employees – Your employees’ beliefs, attitudes and behaviors determine the quality of the customer service provided. The quality of customer service will never exceed the quality of the people who provide it. Happy employees create happy customers.
Number 7: Develop Employees – The three key words in employee development are training, training, and training. Teach your employees how to serve the customer, equip them to serve, and then empower them to serve with excellence.
Number 6: Establish Relationships – Customer loyalty is achieved by having a relationship with your customers. The stronger the relationship, the more loyal your customer becomes. Relationships are built upon trust, communication, and interaction. Every customer interaction is an opportunity to further enhance communication and improve trust.
Number 5: Measure Performance – If you can’t measure it, you can’t manage it. Measuring customer satisfaction, customer feedback, and employee adherence to customer service standards is paramount in delivering exceptional customer service with any degree of consistency. Always inspect what you expect.
Number 4: Build Team Unity – To achieve optimal success everyone must be on the same page, striving for the same goal, aspiring to the same vision, and functioning as a team. Teamwork will always produce greater results, then individuals working alone.
Number 3: Formulate a Plan – Is the care your customers receive by design or by default? Without a crystal clear, well defined, universal set of customer service standards you will leave customer satisfaction up to chance. If you fail to plan, you plan to fail.
Number 2: Commit to Excellence – Customer service is the number one differentiator in today’s competitive marketplace. Having a good product or a low price does not guarantee a competitive advantage or customer loyalty anymore. Commit to installing and fostering a customer-first culture within your company. Serving with excellence is a choice.
And the Number 1 principle all companies need to implement to achieve service excellence is:
Belief – Believe in the power of customer service. Believe in necessity of customer retention. Believe in the relationship between customer loyalty and the growth of your business. Believe that becoming customer-focused not only makes good business sense but it guarantees increased revenue and profit. It has been said,” A belief is not merely an idea the mind possesses, it is an idea that possesses the mind.”
I challenge every company to not only implement these principles, but to have the faith, courage, and vision to move beyond providing excellent customer service to building a reputation as a customer service pioneer.
Some companies make things happen
Some companies watch what happens
Some companies wonder what happened
What do these companies have in common, Southwest Airlines, Neiman Marcus, Marriot, Disney, and Enterprise Car Rental? They are all customer service pioneers. Each company has forged a new path through their commitment, dedication, and innovations, to become known as leaders in delivering excellent customer service. Serving the customer is more than some fancy words on their company mission statements. Customer service truly represents the very essence of each company’s’ existence.
These companies, along with hundreds more, have already done the hard work; they have laid the ground work, set the examples, and blazed the trails for other companies to follow. They have demonstrated how to achieve success by serving the customer.
Why then, don’t all companies follow this proven path to success?
Do they not know the core principles these companies follow?
To borrow a concept from the Late Show with David Letterman, this is a top ten list of principles all companies need to implement to achieve service excellence.
Number 10: Focus – The customer should always be the number one focus of any company. All decisions, services, and products should be based upon satisfying the needs and expectations of the customers.
Number 9: Take Action – The best laid plans will never come to life, without action. If you are going to talk-the-talk, then you must walk-the-walk. When companies, which brag about the importance of customer service, fail to deliver outstanding service, customers and employees lose faith and trust in them.
Number 8: Create Happy Employees – Your employees’ beliefs, attitudes and behaviors determine the quality of the customer service provided. The quality of customer service will never exceed the quality of the people who provide it. Happy employees create happy customers.
Number 7: Develop Employees – The three key words in employee development are training, training, and training. Teach your employees how to serve the customer, equip them to serve, and then empower them to serve with excellence.
Number 6: Establish Relationships – Customer loyalty is achieved by having a relationship with your customers. The stronger the relationship, the more loyal your customer becomes. Relationships are built upon trust, communication, and interaction. Every customer interaction is an opportunity to further enhance communication and improve trust.
Number 5: Measure Performance – If you can’t measure it, you can’t manage it. Measuring customer satisfaction, customer feedback, and employee adherence to customer service standards is paramount in delivering exceptional customer service with any degree of consistency. Always inspect what you expect.
Number 4: Build Team Unity – To achieve optimal success everyone must be on the same page, striving for the same goal, aspiring to the same vision, and functioning as a team. Teamwork will always produce greater results, then individuals working alone.
Number 3: Formulate a Plan – Is the care your customers receive by design or by default? Without a crystal clear, well defined, universal set of customer service standards you will leave customer satisfaction up to chance. If you fail to plan, you plan to fail.
Number 2: Commit to Excellence – Customer service is the number one differentiator in today’s competitive marketplace. Having a good product or a low price does not guarantee a competitive advantage or customer loyalty anymore. Commit to installing and fostering a customer-first culture within your company. Serving with excellence is a choice.
And the Number 1 principle all companies need to implement to achieve service excellence is:
Belief – Believe in the power of customer service. Believe in necessity of customer retention. Believe in the relationship between customer loyalty and the growth of your business. Believe that becoming customer-focused not only makes good business sense but it guarantees increased revenue and profit. It has been said,” A belief is not merely an idea the mind possesses, it is an idea that possesses the mind.”
I challenge every company to not only implement these principles, but to have the faith, courage, and vision to move beyond providing excellent customer service to building a reputation as a customer service pioneer.
Some companies make things happen
Some companies watch what happens
Some companies wonder what happened
My name is James. I have a brother, he is an entrepreneur. He has great company in our country and in other country. He has many cars in his home. I want to borrow his car to go to school. My brother gives one of his cars to me. I am very happy with it .The car very nice, but the interior is bad. I want to modify this car, but I don’t know how to modify the car.
Every day I went to school with my car. Many of friends said that my car is bad. They suggest me to change the exterior and also the interior. My friends want to help me to change my car style. First, I must change the wheel with new wheel. After that, I must change the interior with new item. I plug many accessories to my car. I change the dash kit in the car. I also change the drive handle with new drive handle. I want to change the dash kit with a wood dash kit. I think it is good for my car.
Sunday morning, I went to my brother house. He stay at home the day. I drive my car from my brother. My brother very like with this car. He wants to modify his car like my car. So, I help him to modify his car. I ask my friends to modify my brother cars. My friends can help me to modify my brother car. We go to car accessories and let’s get the time to modify the car. In the car accessories shop many item to put to the car. Any new items at the car shop. I change the dash kit like in my car. I think it’s nice in my brother car. I also put audio item to my brother car. It’s so nice. You can get a great car with modify your car like me.
Healthcare Marketing asked:
Many OB/GYNs are facing the same challenges, which include lower reimbursement rates, increased competition, and the feeling like the practice is running you – instead of the other way around.
OB/GYNs are facing a changing environment… making it more difficult to attract and keep patients, earn high revenues, develop referrals, and ultimately enjoy a quality of life that was once expected and easily attained by physicians.
We know that an effective and strategic marketing solution can eliminate these obstacles to personal fulfillment, and open the door to new opportunities, growth and satisfaction.
The market is shifting. And due to insurance costs and concerns about liablilty, some doctors are getting our of obstetrics entirely and focusing just on gynecology.
Others are exploring new revenue streams such as cosmetic gynecology. Some are combining disciplines and offering internal medicine, dermatology and OB/GYN under one roof. We ahve also noticed that some OB/GYNs are wanting to focus on attracting certain types of patients and cases that bring either personal fulfillment, higher revenues, or both. Whatever your particular situation is, or how near or far you may feel from your goals of having a more managable, fulfilling practice… there are solutions and methods to get you to where you want to be.
And male OB/GYNs are in need of special marketing that addresses the growing trend towards female-to-female doctor-patient relationships.
The bottom line is this: What you knew about the business of being an OB/GYN has changed and continues to evolve. If you want your practice to thrive and grow in the coming years, contact us for a free consultation. You can ask all the questions you want, and we may even give you a few more that you hadn’t yet thought about.
For more information, please visit our website, www.healthcaremarketingpartners.com
Or send us an email by clicking here.
Many OB/GYNs are facing the same challenges, which include lower reimbursement rates, increased competition, and the feeling like the practice is running you – instead of the other way around.
OB/GYNs are facing a changing environment… making it more difficult to attract and keep patients, earn high revenues, develop referrals, and ultimately enjoy a quality of life that was once expected and easily attained by physicians.
We know that an effective and strategic marketing solution can eliminate these obstacles to personal fulfillment, and open the door to new opportunities, growth and satisfaction.
The market is shifting. And due to insurance costs and concerns about liablilty, some doctors are getting our of obstetrics entirely and focusing just on gynecology.
Others are exploring new revenue streams such as cosmetic gynecology. Some are combining disciplines and offering internal medicine, dermatology and OB/GYN under one roof. We ahve also noticed that some OB/GYNs are wanting to focus on attracting certain types of patients and cases that bring either personal fulfillment, higher revenues, or both. Whatever your particular situation is, or how near or far you may feel from your goals of having a more managable, fulfilling practice… there are solutions and methods to get you to where you want to be.
And male OB/GYNs are in need of special marketing that addresses the growing trend towards female-to-female doctor-patient relationships.
The bottom line is this: What you knew about the business of being an OB/GYN has changed and continues to evolve. If you want your practice to thrive and grow in the coming years, contact us for a free consultation. You can ask all the questions you want, and we may even give you a few more that you hadn’t yet thought about.
For more information, please visit our website, www.healthcaremarketingpartners.com
Or send us an email by clicking here.
Stephen Milford asked:
What is customer service? Have you ever stopped to really think about this question? We have trained literally thousands of people and hundreds of organisations in customer service. No matter who the person or what the organisation, the answer to this question is always generic. They will say: “Customer service is about giving customers what they want” or perhaps “it’s about satisfying customers” some times they will say that it is about “making customers happy.”
While at first glance these answers may sound correct, nothing could be further from the truth. Say for example that you ran a restaurant. If a customer were to enter your restaurant and ask for some office supplies would you be able to give the customer what they want? Would you be able to satisfy a customer who was looking for some jewellery if you worked in a hardware store? No, it would be impossible. The best that you could do would be to politely tell the customer where they can go and get Jewry. Obviously, customer service is not about giving customers what they want, or even satisfying customers.
The same is true for the way we give customer service. When we ask the question: what is the most important thing for good customer service, almost everyone we ask will answer: smile. While this may be good in some cases it is not appropriate in all cases. Just imagine if a distressed mother came up to you and told you that she had lost her 2 year old child in your store. Imagine how she would respond if you were to smile at her? Or imagine if a customer told you that he/she slipped while climbing the stairs or escalator in your store and as they explained their excruciating injuries you smiled back at them.
The truth is that customer service is not about practicalities, it’s about principles. The practicalities may change but the principles stay the same. Staff are not meant to smile all the time, to give customers everything they want, or to satisfy all their needs. Staff are meant to promote the organisation and its values. If you want to increase the impact of your customer service teach staff to represent your organisation and its unique traits.
When we teach customer service training modules we first focus on what the organisation values, what it’s all about and what does it want customers to see. Once we have done this, we move on to how to serve in light of these values. This is a very easy way of getting staff to change the way they serve, it produces better results and is a lot more fun to teach.
Here is something you can do to help your staff engage in effective customer service. Take a black/white board and draw a very basic house. Ask staff to take a piece of chalk or the white board marker and to take turns to turn this basic house into your organisation/company. They may add pictures or words to the basic drawing. Some will add words like: quality, professionalism, friendliness, service, money, speed, or simplicity while others may draw things like customers and staff.
Now ask staff this simple question: in light of this picture, what does a good customer service representative do? The participants will now find it easy to see what customer service is really about in your organisation. They may say for example, in light of us being a friendly company we should smile. Or perhaps they will highlight the organisation’s professionalism and explain that it’s professional to stand up straight and to dress appropriately.
Instead of teaching staff practicalities teach them principles and the practicalities will follow naturally.
What is customer service? Have you ever stopped to really think about this question? We have trained literally thousands of people and hundreds of organisations in customer service. No matter who the person or what the organisation, the answer to this question is always generic. They will say: “Customer service is about giving customers what they want” or perhaps “it’s about satisfying customers” some times they will say that it is about “making customers happy.”
While at first glance these answers may sound correct, nothing could be further from the truth. Say for example that you ran a restaurant. If a customer were to enter your restaurant and ask for some office supplies would you be able to give the customer what they want? Would you be able to satisfy a customer who was looking for some jewellery if you worked in a hardware store? No, it would be impossible. The best that you could do would be to politely tell the customer where they can go and get Jewry. Obviously, customer service is not about giving customers what they want, or even satisfying customers.
The same is true for the way we give customer service. When we ask the question: what is the most important thing for good customer service, almost everyone we ask will answer: smile. While this may be good in some cases it is not appropriate in all cases. Just imagine if a distressed mother came up to you and told you that she had lost her 2 year old child in your store. Imagine how she would respond if you were to smile at her? Or imagine if a customer told you that he/she slipped while climbing the stairs or escalator in your store and as they explained their excruciating injuries you smiled back at them.
The truth is that customer service is not about practicalities, it’s about principles. The practicalities may change but the principles stay the same. Staff are not meant to smile all the time, to give customers everything they want, or to satisfy all their needs. Staff are meant to promote the organisation and its values. If you want to increase the impact of your customer service teach staff to represent your organisation and its unique traits.
When we teach customer service training modules we first focus on what the organisation values, what it’s all about and what does it want customers to see. Once we have done this, we move on to how to serve in light of these values. This is a very easy way of getting staff to change the way they serve, it produces better results and is a lot more fun to teach.
Here is something you can do to help your staff engage in effective customer service. Take a black/white board and draw a very basic house. Ask staff to take a piece of chalk or the white board marker and to take turns to turn this basic house into your organisation/company. They may add pictures or words to the basic drawing. Some will add words like: quality, professionalism, friendliness, service, money, speed, or simplicity while others may draw things like customers and staff.
Now ask staff this simple question: in light of this picture, what does a good customer service representative do? The participants will now find it easy to see what customer service is really about in your organisation. They may say for example, in light of us being a friendly company we should smile. Or perhaps they will highlight the organisation’s professionalism and explain that it’s professional to stand up straight and to dress appropriately.
Instead of teaching staff practicalities teach them principles and the practicalities will follow naturally.
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- Tags: Hardware Store, Organisations, Truth
Assassin Marketing asked:
Online marketing is no doubt the most effective way to reach people. Its capability to earn millions is unquestioned.
Perhaps, this is one of the most momentous discoveries of mankind. The internet has brought about a lot of changes in the world. It allowed us reach the unreachable; it permitted us to communicate with the people around the globe without spending much money.
These are also the reason why people nowadays are investing in online marketing for their businesses…because beyond a doubt, online marketing will work for them.
We do have a lot of options to choose from when it comes to advertising. In fact, we have the television, radios, print media and all. However, online marketing still belongs at the top of the list for many reasons.
First, people prefer online marketing because it reaches the whole world. Your supposedly very small business may become very large almost overnight because of the magic of using online marketing because everyone in this world can literally see what you offer.
Second, you reach the world and get millions without having to pay millions in return. The cost of online marketing compared to other forms of media is very efficient and cost effective. Let’s say you use print media. If you are going to make a flyer and advertise it over the world, how much would it cost you? If you were to pay for TV advertisement, you would definitely have to pay for every single second that your business is aired.
Third, online marketing creates a two-way communication process. We do not simply promote what we have. Hence, we get to know what our visitors or what our customers think through the ”Comments” box on our web pages. By doing so, we get to know what they want and we are able to improve our products and services.
Next, it is also very important that we build relationship with our customers. Yes, we may have benefited from them but we should always find ways to keep them coming back to our place of business or at least our website. With online marketing, we are able to do this because we can become interactive with them, thus, making our customers feel that they are valued.
Fifth, in business, we always have to budget our resources. Unlike in other forms of media, we save a lot of money with online marketing because we will no longer need to keep sending letters, flyers or postcards every time we want to contact our customers or offer a promotion. In fact, the current trend is to only mail your customer information if they need additional resources or information about your business. For advertisements in newspapers and magazines, you have to pay for every inch of space, and even every color used in the design your ad. With online marketing, it is always cost-effective.
The sixth reason why people have shifted to online marketing is its flexibility. For example, let’s say there has been a change in the benefits or features of your product or service, or even a change in your prices. Well, you’ll have to hire someone to redesign your ad, reprint it and send it out again…and that cost more money. But with online marketing, you can easily update your site and make the changes without removing money from your wallet. Does it sound great? Yes, it does.
Well, are you getting the picture on why there is a craze with online marketing? Here’s more.
Another reason a business should prefer online marketing is because you have a lot of media choices when promoting your business. You can opt to show videos, photo presentations, audio, blogs or even social media. There is nothing really hard about this type of strategy. It will definitely save you more time and of course, resources.
Moreover, you can monitor what is going on with your business. Through the use of tracking, you have the chance to see the traffic generated by your site. With this feature of online marketing, you get to know what else you can do to tweak and improve your site because you see what keywords prospects are choosing to find you and incorporate more of those into your website.
Online marketing is also an extremely effective type of advertising because you can design your website the way you want it. You have the power to add features in it, to create a web design that would attract visitors and make them stop on your web page and take a look at what you have. The best thing about it is that, you can do the changes anytime you want without worrying about your expenses. By controlling the design, more and more people will be attracted to your site and you will be able to create an amazing impression on them.
Lastly, people go crazy about online marketing is because it is beneficial not just for businesses but for the consumers as well. Why? Simply because it makes everything much more convenient. The consumers need not go out of their house anymore and search around the city to look for what they want. With just a click, they can have it. And another thing is that the communication between the buyer and consumer is immediate. Response is very fast and that is why transactions are almost immediate.
So there we have it. These ten reasons explain why online marketing has become the number one source of advertising today. You need not have a second thought anymore. All you have to do is close your eyes and dream of how money can be made when you invest your money in online marketing.
Online marketing is no doubt the most effective way to reach people. Its capability to earn millions is unquestioned.
Perhaps, this is one of the most momentous discoveries of mankind. The internet has brought about a lot of changes in the world. It allowed us reach the unreachable; it permitted us to communicate with the people around the globe without spending much money.
These are also the reason why people nowadays are investing in online marketing for their businesses…because beyond a doubt, online marketing will work for them.
We do have a lot of options to choose from when it comes to advertising. In fact, we have the television, radios, print media and all. However, online marketing still belongs at the top of the list for many reasons.
First, people prefer online marketing because it reaches the whole world. Your supposedly very small business may become very large almost overnight because of the magic of using online marketing because everyone in this world can literally see what you offer.
Second, you reach the world and get millions without having to pay millions in return. The cost of online marketing compared to other forms of media is very efficient and cost effective. Let’s say you use print media. If you are going to make a flyer and advertise it over the world, how much would it cost you? If you were to pay for TV advertisement, you would definitely have to pay for every single second that your business is aired.
Third, online marketing creates a two-way communication process. We do not simply promote what we have. Hence, we get to know what our visitors or what our customers think through the ”Comments” box on our web pages. By doing so, we get to know what they want and we are able to improve our products and services.
Next, it is also very important that we build relationship with our customers. Yes, we may have benefited from them but we should always find ways to keep them coming back to our place of business or at least our website. With online marketing, we are able to do this because we can become interactive with them, thus, making our customers feel that they are valued.
Fifth, in business, we always have to budget our resources. Unlike in other forms of media, we save a lot of money with online marketing because we will no longer need to keep sending letters, flyers or postcards every time we want to contact our customers or offer a promotion. In fact, the current trend is to only mail your customer information if they need additional resources or information about your business. For advertisements in newspapers and magazines, you have to pay for every inch of space, and even every color used in the design your ad. With online marketing, it is always cost-effective.
The sixth reason why people have shifted to online marketing is its flexibility. For example, let’s say there has been a change in the benefits or features of your product or service, or even a change in your prices. Well, you’ll have to hire someone to redesign your ad, reprint it and send it out again…and that cost more money. But with online marketing, you can easily update your site and make the changes without removing money from your wallet. Does it sound great? Yes, it does.
Well, are you getting the picture on why there is a craze with online marketing? Here’s more.
Another reason a business should prefer online marketing is because you have a lot of media choices when promoting your business. You can opt to show videos, photo presentations, audio, blogs or even social media. There is nothing really hard about this type of strategy. It will definitely save you more time and of course, resources.
Moreover, you can monitor what is going on with your business. Through the use of tracking, you have the chance to see the traffic generated by your site. With this feature of online marketing, you get to know what else you can do to tweak and improve your site because you see what keywords prospects are choosing to find you and incorporate more of those into your website.
Online marketing is also an extremely effective type of advertising because you can design your website the way you want it. You have the power to add features in it, to create a web design that would attract visitors and make them stop on your web page and take a look at what you have. The best thing about it is that, you can do the changes anytime you want without worrying about your expenses. By controlling the design, more and more people will be attracted to your site and you will be able to create an amazing impression on them.
Lastly, people go crazy about online marketing is because it is beneficial not just for businesses but for the consumers as well. Why? Simply because it makes everything much more convenient. The consumers need not go out of their house anymore and search around the city to look for what they want. With just a click, they can have it. And another thing is that the communication between the buyer and consumer is immediate. Response is very fast and that is why transactions are almost immediate.
So there we have it. These ten reasons explain why online marketing has become the number one source of advertising today. You need not have a second thought anymore. All you have to do is close your eyes and dream of how money can be made when you invest your money in online marketing.
Mario Joyner asked:
Whenever one invests in real estate the most important thing that they have to look for are the finances. Any real estate property be it apartment or other requires huge amounts of money and hence the need of apartment financing. The choice of a particular financing option largely affects the investment outcomes and hence one must tread cautiously in the matter of apartment financing. There are many financing options that one can go for in apartment financing such as banks and private lenders. There are also some prerequisites that one can consider before going in for apartment financing. The traditional methods of apartment financing do not allow much flexibility but with the growth of private lenders there is much flexibility which one can consider in apartment financing.
Apartment Financing Options
Before considering the different financing options one must make sure how long one is going to hold the property and whether the investment is long term or short term because this has important implications in the choice of finance one can get. When one is considering owning the apartment for a short period then one can surely go in for the adjustable rate mortgage or the ARM for short. The ARM apartment financing option offers an interest rate that changes with the index. The initial interest rate in the ARM is more competitive than other apartment financing options. Interest rate fluctuations in the future impact the finances and hence the ARM is important in this regard. Also the maximum interest rate also works as protection for those who hold the mortgage. For those wanting to remain long in the business there is the fixed rate mortgage apartment financing. The rate of interest for the borrowers in this apartment financing remains the same for the whole period of the mortgage and hence it offers the borrowers cost effective apartment finance.
When one goes for the fixed interest rate apartment financing when the interest rates are low all the advantage is for the borrowers since they qualify for the same interest rate until all the loan is repaid. The opposite happens when the interest rates are higher in the market. First time investors must also look for the value of the apartment because it affects the type of finance they will receive. Generally higher the value of the apartment the best interest rates will be got from direct lenders or investment companies. However when the value of the property is smaller one can consider the financing options from ones local banks.
Apartment financing from smaller banks or direct lenders is another important option that one can consider in apartment financing because they offer flexible apartment loans as compared with other reputed banks and lenders. One can have finances like non-recourse as well as partial-recourse loans from the small banks and the direct lenders who are always on the look out for borrowers. In the event of non-repayment of the amount the traditional lenders can claim the property and recover their loan while in the conventional loan the lender cannot claim the apartment for which finance is given but they can claim the property that has been mortgaged as the security for their finances.
Find out more at Learn Apartment Financing
Whenever one invests in real estate the most important thing that they have to look for are the finances. Any real estate property be it apartment or other requires huge amounts of money and hence the need of apartment financing. The choice of a particular financing option largely affects the investment outcomes and hence one must tread cautiously in the matter of apartment financing. There are many financing options that one can go for in apartment financing such as banks and private lenders. There are also some prerequisites that one can consider before going in for apartment financing. The traditional methods of apartment financing do not allow much flexibility but with the growth of private lenders there is much flexibility which one can consider in apartment financing.
Apartment Financing Options
Before considering the different financing options one must make sure how long one is going to hold the property and whether the investment is long term or short term because this has important implications in the choice of finance one can get. When one is considering owning the apartment for a short period then one can surely go in for the adjustable rate mortgage or the ARM for short. The ARM apartment financing option offers an interest rate that changes with the index. The initial interest rate in the ARM is more competitive than other apartment financing options. Interest rate fluctuations in the future impact the finances and hence the ARM is important in this regard. Also the maximum interest rate also works as protection for those who hold the mortgage. For those wanting to remain long in the business there is the fixed rate mortgage apartment financing. The rate of interest for the borrowers in this apartment financing remains the same for the whole period of the mortgage and hence it offers the borrowers cost effective apartment finance.
When one goes for the fixed interest rate apartment financing when the interest rates are low all the advantage is for the borrowers since they qualify for the same interest rate until all the loan is repaid. The opposite happens when the interest rates are higher in the market. First time investors must also look for the value of the apartment because it affects the type of finance they will receive. Generally higher the value of the apartment the best interest rates will be got from direct lenders or investment companies. However when the value of the property is smaller one can consider the financing options from ones local banks.
Apartment financing from smaller banks or direct lenders is another important option that one can consider in apartment financing because they offer flexible apartment loans as compared with other reputed banks and lenders. One can have finances like non-recourse as well as partial-recourse loans from the small banks and the direct lenders who are always on the look out for borrowers. In the event of non-repayment of the amount the traditional lenders can claim the property and recover their loan while in the conventional loan the lender cannot claim the apartment for which finance is given but they can claim the property that has been mortgaged as the security for their finances.
Find out more at Learn Apartment Financing
James Copper asked:
Does your online marketing skill make up for in enthusiasm what it lacks in knowledge and expertise? If this is the case, you’re not giving your business every possible advantage. While it’s true that in order to be success at your networking business you need to have passion for your product, you also need to know how to make the public aware of it and want to be a part of it. Online marketing courses are one of the most effective ways to help make this happen for you.
What’s So Important About Online Marketing Courses?
You’re probably remembering your days back in school and all the reading, tests and studying you had to do and how much you hated it. Does the prospect of taking more courses appeal to you any more now than it did then? Absolutely, because you know the importance of what you’ll be learning in these online marketing courses and how they can help gain you a successful online business, a lifelong income and, possibly, fame. What more can you possibly ask for?
The importance of taking online marketing courses is that you can get help and guidance from those that know what they’re talking about in areas where you may be lacking. If you’re just starting your business, there are going to be plenty of areas where you’ll need help. I know when I first started; I needed lots of help and guidance. There were not near the opportunities in online marketing courses available a few years back as there are today. You now have the opportunity to take online marketing courses that will teach you everything you need to know to run a successful online business from the ground up.
What Will Online Marketing Courses Cost?
A major concern for many individuals just starting their online business is keeping costs down as much as possible. This is the case with any business ventures. The less expenses you have, the more profit you’ll make when your business does get off the ground and running strong. However, some expenses are unavoidable in business and the expense you’ll incur for gaining the knowledge to start your business and make it successful will be invaluable to you down the road.
You’ll be happy to hear that many online marketing courses are free on the web. It’s just a matter of finding the right ones. Others, however, may be listed for a fee that’s very affordable. When choosing your online marketing courses, you’ll have your choice of individual courses, programs offering certificates in certain areas of study or complete course packages. If you online need help in a couple of topic such as SEO, email marketing or website hosting, you can easily get by with the specific individuals. If you feel you need all the help you can get, enrolling in complete online marketing courses may be the answer. Whatever area you feel you need the most help and guidance, you’re sure to find online marketing courses to meet that need. The glorious internet has it all.
Does your online marketing skill make up for in enthusiasm what it lacks in knowledge and expertise? If this is the case, you’re not giving your business every possible advantage. While it’s true that in order to be success at your networking business you need to have passion for your product, you also need to know how to make the public aware of it and want to be a part of it. Online marketing courses are one of the most effective ways to help make this happen for you.
What’s So Important About Online Marketing Courses?
You’re probably remembering your days back in school and all the reading, tests and studying you had to do and how much you hated it. Does the prospect of taking more courses appeal to you any more now than it did then? Absolutely, because you know the importance of what you’ll be learning in these online marketing courses and how they can help gain you a successful online business, a lifelong income and, possibly, fame. What more can you possibly ask for?
The importance of taking online marketing courses is that you can get help and guidance from those that know what they’re talking about in areas where you may be lacking. If you’re just starting your business, there are going to be plenty of areas where you’ll need help. I know when I first started; I needed lots of help and guidance. There were not near the opportunities in online marketing courses available a few years back as there are today. You now have the opportunity to take online marketing courses that will teach you everything you need to know to run a successful online business from the ground up.
What Will Online Marketing Courses Cost?
A major concern for many individuals just starting their online business is keeping costs down as much as possible. This is the case with any business ventures. The less expenses you have, the more profit you’ll make when your business does get off the ground and running strong. However, some expenses are unavoidable in business and the expense you’ll incur for gaining the knowledge to start your business and make it successful will be invaluable to you down the road.
You’ll be happy to hear that many online marketing courses are free on the web. It’s just a matter of finding the right ones. Others, however, may be listed for a fee that’s very affordable. When choosing your online marketing courses, you’ll have your choice of individual courses, programs offering certificates in certain areas of study or complete course packages. If you online need help in a couple of topic such as SEO, email marketing or website hosting, you can easily get by with the specific individuals. If you feel you need all the help you can get, enrolling in complete online marketing courses may be the answer. Whatever area you feel you need the most help and guidance, you’re sure to find online marketing courses to meet that need. The glorious internet has it all.
Carolyn Craven asked:
According to a well documented study, sixty-eight percent of customers who leave your company for one of your competitors do so because they believe you are indifferent to their needs and opinions.
It is a common organizational pitfall to become complacent about customers’ needs and wants, especially during positive economic times. Although you may be familiar with the statistic that attracting a new customer costs five to six times as much as retaining an existing one, it’s easy to make the mistake of letting customer feedback fall to the wayside when you have two or three new customers lined up for every one that you lose.
But what happens when that reserve of new customers suddenly dries up? Although there were some classic warning signs, many businesses were caught off-guard by the present economic recession. Businesses across all industries are being adversely affected by a shrinking GDP (which decreased at an annual rate of 6.3% in Q4 2008) and rising unemployment (which increased to 8.5% in March 2009). Americans are tightening their spending belts and businesses are clamoring for fewer customers who all have fewer dollars to spend.
With demand for both consumer and B2B goods and services slipping, it is more important than ever to satisfy and retain the customers you do have. While attracting new customers will always remain a goal to strive for, few companies have the luxury in these difficult economic times to spend many of their diminishing marketing dollars on that objective. It is much more efficient to concentrate on retaining, up-selling, and driving repeat business from current customers.
According to a recent survey from Accenture (2008 Customer Satisfaction Survey), “how well companies understood and met the distinct preferences and expectations of the customers they serve” was the number one reason that customers stayed with their current product or service provider rather than seeking a competitive alternative. It may surprise you, given the current economic climate, but customer experience ranked even higher than price when determining when and if to leave a provider.
Given that a positive customer experience with your products, services, and customer service employees is essential to retaining customers and therefore vital to the health and longevity of your business, right now is one of the most critical times in our economic history to listen and respond to feedback from your customers.
Gathering customer feedback must not be viewed as a dispensable expenditure, even in the face of sharp budget cuts. According to a recent report by the Aberdeen Group, 55% of companies surveyed have made zero budgetary cuts in the area of customer feedback initiatives, and 19% have actually increased spending in this area. Informed business leaders realize that an investment in customer feedback and retention is an investment in the long term survival and growth of their companies.
Online customer surveys have evolved as one of the most cost-effective, efficient, and accurate means of gathering customer feedback data. Online surveys allow marketing professionals to measure satisfaction levels from a large number of customers at once, without the incremental time and cost of using paper or telephone surveys. Products like Checkbox Survey are managed from a standard web browser, can be implemented relatively quickly without costly IT services, and can be deployed on a large or small scale depending on a company’s needs. By utilizing online surveys, organizations can easily tap into existing customer email databases and incorporate customer surveys into their current customer email campaigns.
Because online surveys from vendors like Checkbox can be designed and deployed quickly and updated at any time by multiple users (within set permissions), companies are able to easily adjust their survey initiatives to react to shifting market and economic conditions. Survey results and reports are available in real time, allowing for opportune responses and reactions.
Customer retention rates won’t soar overnight, but small incremental changes that are implemented thoughtfully can have a significant impact in your customers’ perception of how you value them and their business. Start by surveying your customers today to create a baseline of your current customer satisfaction levels. Then, consider integrating feedback surveys into your everyday business process. This not only softens the resource requirements of collecting feedback, but also allows your business to check its customer satisfaction pulse at any point in time. Common customer satisfaction surveys include evaluations that are emailed automatically following a purchase transaction or customer service experience.
However your business chooses to monitor and respond to customer feedback, it is most critical that customer satisfaction remains a top priority. The economic tide will turn again, but the businesses that will survive and thrive for years to come are the ones that continue to value the opinions and needs of their current customers, regardless of how many new customers may be lined up to take their place.
For more information about customer satisfaction and survey software options, visit Checkbox Survey Solutions at http://www.checkbox.com or contact a Checkbox Product Expert at 1-866-430-8274 (Int’l +1-617-715-9605).
According to a well documented study, sixty-eight percent of customers who leave your company for one of your competitors do so because they believe you are indifferent to their needs and opinions.
It is a common organizational pitfall to become complacent about customers’ needs and wants, especially during positive economic times. Although you may be familiar with the statistic that attracting a new customer costs five to six times as much as retaining an existing one, it’s easy to make the mistake of letting customer feedback fall to the wayside when you have two or three new customers lined up for every one that you lose.
But what happens when that reserve of new customers suddenly dries up? Although there were some classic warning signs, many businesses were caught off-guard by the present economic recession. Businesses across all industries are being adversely affected by a shrinking GDP (which decreased at an annual rate of 6.3% in Q4 2008) and rising unemployment (which increased to 8.5% in March 2009). Americans are tightening their spending belts and businesses are clamoring for fewer customers who all have fewer dollars to spend.
With demand for both consumer and B2B goods and services slipping, it is more important than ever to satisfy and retain the customers you do have. While attracting new customers will always remain a goal to strive for, few companies have the luxury in these difficult economic times to spend many of their diminishing marketing dollars on that objective. It is much more efficient to concentrate on retaining, up-selling, and driving repeat business from current customers.
According to a recent survey from Accenture (2008 Customer Satisfaction Survey), “how well companies understood and met the distinct preferences and expectations of the customers they serve” was the number one reason that customers stayed with their current product or service provider rather than seeking a competitive alternative. It may surprise you, given the current economic climate, but customer experience ranked even higher than price when determining when and if to leave a provider.
Given that a positive customer experience with your products, services, and customer service employees is essential to retaining customers and therefore vital to the health and longevity of your business, right now is one of the most critical times in our economic history to listen and respond to feedback from your customers.
Gathering customer feedback must not be viewed as a dispensable expenditure, even in the face of sharp budget cuts. According to a recent report by the Aberdeen Group, 55% of companies surveyed have made zero budgetary cuts in the area of customer feedback initiatives, and 19% have actually increased spending in this area. Informed business leaders realize that an investment in customer feedback and retention is an investment in the long term survival and growth of their companies.
Online customer surveys have evolved as one of the most cost-effective, efficient, and accurate means of gathering customer feedback data. Online surveys allow marketing professionals to measure satisfaction levels from a large number of customers at once, without the incremental time and cost of using paper or telephone surveys. Products like Checkbox Survey are managed from a standard web browser, can be implemented relatively quickly without costly IT services, and can be deployed on a large or small scale depending on a company’s needs. By utilizing online surveys, organizations can easily tap into existing customer email databases and incorporate customer surveys into their current customer email campaigns.
Because online surveys from vendors like Checkbox can be designed and deployed quickly and updated at any time by multiple users (within set permissions), companies are able to easily adjust their survey initiatives to react to shifting market and economic conditions. Survey results and reports are available in real time, allowing for opportune responses and reactions.
Customer retention rates won’t soar overnight, but small incremental changes that are implemented thoughtfully can have a significant impact in your customers’ perception of how you value them and their business. Start by surveying your customers today to create a baseline of your current customer satisfaction levels. Then, consider integrating feedback surveys into your everyday business process. This not only softens the resource requirements of collecting feedback, but also allows your business to check its customer satisfaction pulse at any point in time. Common customer satisfaction surveys include evaluations that are emailed automatically following a purchase transaction or customer service experience.
However your business chooses to monitor and respond to customer feedback, it is most critical that customer satisfaction remains a top priority. The economic tide will turn again, but the businesses that will survive and thrive for years to come are the ones that continue to value the opinions and needs of their current customers, regardless of how many new customers may be lined up to take their place.
For more information about customer satisfaction and survey software options, visit Checkbox Survey Solutions at http://www.checkbox.com or contact a Checkbox Product Expert at 1-866-430-8274 (Int’l +1-617-715-9605).
- 0 Comments
- Tags: B2b Services, Customer Experience, Q4
