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.

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.

We have a free, 2 hour course which you can download and run with your staff to help them improve their customer service, just visit www.griffin.ie.

Shelly Hill asked:


Providing good customer service to your customers and hosts in direct sales needs to be a consultants top priority. In this day and age, there are millions of consultants all competing for the same customers, the same party hosts and the same potential recruit.

1. Answer all questions that a customer has for you. Answer them completely and in as much detail as possible. Speak normal language. Customers are not familiar with abbreviations or slang words used by an individual business.

2. Make sure you calculate all totals correctly. Customers get irritated if you make errors in adding up their orders, over charging them etc. Always double check your totals when a customer is paying cash. You don’t want to embarrass yourself by short-changing a customer. If its a home party, make sure you take a calculator or adding machine with you. The math you do in your head is not as accurate as using a calculator.

3. Always provide contact information. If you are doing business online or through mail order, it is important that a customer get your contact information and you should provide several avenues for a customer to make contact with you. I provide my phone number, fax, 2 email addresses and home address.

4. Always thank your customer for their order. Make them feel like they are important to you! If its an online order, send them a free email thank you card or a thank you email. Again, include your contact information on that. If its an offline book order, follow up with a postal postcard or thank you note via postal mail. Include a business card. This is very important if its a FIRST TIME customer with you. You want their repeat business and future referrals. I try to thank all my customers all the time whether they are a new customer or a repeat customer.

5. Allow 2 weeks for a customer to receive their order then follow up again with that customer. You can email them, call them or jot a note to them via postal mail. Let them know that you are still there for them. Make sure their order arrived on time and was complete and accurate. Ask them if they are satisfied with the transaction and if not, do your best to make it correct promptly. Don’t let customers hanging when something goes wrong.

6. I usually wait 3 months and make contact with that customer again. Let them know of any upcoming sales specials, hostess specials etc. You can do this by emailing them or sending them a postcard, note card or catalog. You want to keep your customer exposed to your business but not overwhelmed or pestered by you, so I suggest contacting them every 3 months unless they have signed up to receive a more often email newsletter etc. from you. These days al ot of customers don’t want overwhelmed by constant emails so keep them limited.

7. If a customer calls your home or place of business and leaves a message for you, make sure you follow up within 48 hours. Customers don’t want to wait days or weeks for you to respond back. Again, be as prompt as possible when dealing with customers. If you are out of town, make sure your loyal customers who order very frequently know you will be unavailable. You don’t have to say You will be on vacation, just say your home office will be closed on such and such day or week.

8. Attitude….this is also important! Do not use vulgar language at any time. Do not eat, smoke or chew gum while speaking to a customer in person or while on the phone with them.! Make sure you speak in a pleasant tone of voice.! If you are on the phone with a customer, please do not have a bunch of “phone interruptions” by other members of your household while you are speaking to the customers, they consider this rude. If you have children, try to call your customers while they are napping or when your spouse is at home to entertain them while you make your call backs.

If you are in a bad mood, hold off in returning calls. Customers can sense your bad mood, just like your children can. Do NOT use a cordless phone for this as you will be tempted to do “other” things while you are speaking to a customer., Your customer deserves your undivided attention when you are speaking to them.

9. If you are delivering your customers order, make sure you are presentable. You don’t have to be wearing a suit or dress, just make sure your clothing is clean and presentable, casual clean wear is fine. Don’t wear cut-off jean shorts, sloppy t-shirts etc. This sets a bad impression and is not professional. Your appearance speaks volumes on how you run your business!

In addition, Make sure you bag or box your customers order in a presentable way. Do not bag their orders in the free plastic or paper grocery bags you get at the store. Try to use bags from your company or go to a outlet business supply store or buy solid color cheap gift bags to bag their orders in but never bag them in a nasty store grocery bag. Make sure you provide a receipt and a future contact business card. If you can afford it, throw in a inexpensive surprise, Thank You for ordering Freebie gift. (the dollar store is great for this).

10. Another way to make your customers special is to offer extra services to them such as:

a. Local Delivery: if the item they purchased is a gift. It is okay to charge a minimal fee for local delivery to cover your expenses.

b. Gift Wrap Service: its okay to charge a small fee for this or better yet, offer it free. The dollar store again is cheap to buy plain gift bags, wrapping paper, bows, cards etc!

c. Postal Shipping: if the customer is shipping a gift out of town and you live near a postal office, offer to ship it to the recipient if the customer pays for the additional shipping.

11. If you do home party plans, Your Hostess of the party is also a customer so don’t neglect her. You need to make her feel special. Offer encouragement and support, make sure she has everything she needs to have a successful party for you. Afterwards, make sure you follow up with her. If you don’t impress her the first time she has a party with you, I guarantee you she won’t have any more from you and you wont get any referrals from her. You could loose a lot of business by not treating your party Host like a Queen!

When running any type of home based business, its a building process, one customer at a time and one party hostess at a time. Once you build a great foundation, you can then build the rest of the “house aka business” upon that. If you start out with a “weak” foundation you will have a “weak” business!

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.

Frank O’Tools asked:


On customer service training courses one of the key questions is, what is customer service? And are the customers always right. Every ones perception of customer service is different; there are common threads to most customer service training courses.

I have used the word perception in the first paragraph and it really is one of the most important words to remember, as good customer service or bad customer service really is down to perception.

I recall shortly after 9/11 I was travelling to Florida, we were supposed to change flights in Newark, but what happened was the flight was late landing in Newark and we missed the connection flight to Florida.

The reason given for the delay was that the flight had to change its flight path due to the recent tragedy at the World Trade Centre. Although this was understandable it was still amazing to watch the reactions of the customers like us, who were affected by missing connecting flights.

From a customer service view point, it was obvious to see that the airline staff had been through some level of customer service training. They apologized, showed empathy offered options and tried their utmost to calm some of the more difficult customers, just the type of key skills one would learn on a customer service training course.

Just as we are always taught on customer service training courses, put yourself in the customers shoes, and offer options, the airline staff offered free accommodation and meals for those who had to wait overnight etc. The customer service training had really paid off, or so I thought.

Unfortunately when we were being transported by coach to the nearby hotels many of the customers were not happy with the service. At least 50% of customers felt the service was poor as it should not have happened in the first place. Although they did feel the people dealing with the problem did show good customer service skills they felt they would be reluctant to travel with the airline again.

The other 50% understood the problem and although were not happy about missing the connecting flights felt the customer service skills the staff had show were excellent and they had done their utmost to resolve a situation they had no control over.

That evening I learned 2 crucial lessons about customer service. I learned that approximately 40 customers had received the very same service but their perceptions of the customer service they received were very different.

I also learned that customer service training should really concentrate on 2 key areas the first being the personal service the client receives from an individual or a company. The second being customer service training courses should also concentrate on the performance or standards of service.

Both sets of customers were right the personal service was excellent; however the standards of performance were poor. With this in mind all customer service training courses should concentrate on the 2 Ps of customer service training.

Personal and Performance

Brandon Walker asked:


 

When dealing with any customer always remember the golden rule that it is a good opportunity for your company to make an impression by providing that person with a sense of personal satisfaction. My research has clearly shown that successful businesses and organisations make every effort to deliver what the customer wants by applying a number of key customer services techniques

The following are six significant techniques that will assist in making your customers feel important and attract them to want to deal with your business.

1. How to build rapport and trust

Providing helpful advice and friendly service helps to build a rapport and trust. An excellent technique to use is to connect the customer in conversation by giving your name and asking theirs as this indicates you are interested in them and what they are looking for. Always be polite, ask appropriate questions and show interest in what is being said as this will help the customer to develop confidence in you.

2. How to communicate

Most customers will know what they want although some may be unsure on where to look or find what they have come for. Your responsibility is to help by assisting them to get what they want. The best customer service technique most businesses follow is to ask relevant questions and importantly to listen as this will help you to assist the consumer. A happy customer will keep in mind the obliging service provided and will return and tell other people about your business.

3. How to help the confused consumer

Sometimes it’s not humanly possible to provide what your customer wants. In such situations it is important to know everything there is to know about the products or services your business has to offer. A good customer service technique some businesses use is to look out for consumers wandering around looking lost and confused. By approaching and offering to help, the customer will be grateful and appreciative for the service and attention you have given.

4. How to provide exceptional customer service

It is easy for successful businesses to become complacent and be lulled into a false sense of security when turnover figures are up. Being complacent can provide the competition with an opportunity to be more productive. To counter this a good effective customer service technique is to introduce staff training programmes so staff can be equipped to provide exceptional service through effective communication, client rapport, phone management and handling difficult customers. Investing in role playing type training programmes is one of the most successful methods businesses use to convey to staff what type of service to the consumer is expected and necessary if a business is to survive.

5. Thanking the customer

Always ensure the customer is genuinely thanked before they leave. This simple gesture is important because most people generally like to be appreciated and know that you are grateful for their business. Also ask the customer if there is anything else you can do as this could result in repeat business.

6. Following up

A very effective customer service technique used by businesses today is to offer generous warranties and discounts on goods and services to loyal consumers (some businesses provide loyalty cards that offer discounts). If a customer has a problem with a product always offer advice and try to fix it or provide a solution. Following up with after sales service through Email, phone or letter is another technique that helps to earn loyalty and adds a nice personal touch.