Exceptional Customer Service

Posts Tagged ‘Exceptional Customer Service’

Customer Service – On A Lone Desert Highway

Wednesday, August 11th, 2010

Customer Service – On A Lone Desert Highway

We’ve all heard stories of motorists who come across a gas station in the middle of nowhere. These gas stations have very few convenience items and charge a great deal for both their fuel as well foodstuffs they may have available.

When viewing movies these locations have absolutely no other buildings around them and typically feature two gentlemen tipping back in a chair watching sparse traffic come and go.

When we view this scenario on television these individuals seem to take pleasure in the discomfort their customers express in having to pay outrageous prices for items they may need.

This scenario is simply a highly identifiable picture of the law of supply and demand. Demand is high and supplies are low so the prevailing attitude is one of take it or leave it.

Two things can happen in a situation where demand is high.

1. The price will be higher than you may believe the product to be worth.
2. Customer service may be less friendly than you expect.

The reason some businesses may have felt they could act this way is simply because their customers had no reasonable choice but to do business with them. When small towns only had one choice for a commodity that commodity wound up costing more than it might in a larger city with multiple stores.

There are some online businesses that still express themselves in a way that cause customers to believe they don’t hold customer service in very high regard.

The problem with this mentality is that an online store bears no resemblance to a roadside gas station in the middle of the desert. An online store is more like a newspaper stand in the middle of New York. If a customer doesn’t like your attitude they can head on to the next stand to pick up the latest news.

Knowing this helps clarify that exceptional customer service should be a hallmark of every online business. In the end, what leverage do you have when providing poor service? What reasoning is solid enough to indicate it is OK to treat your customers less than the best? Do they have another choice?

It might be mildly amusing to look at old movies with a desert in the background and two older guys wondering which vehicles failed to fill up in the last big town. However, when the supply is high (as it is on the Internet) there can be no excuses for price gouging or inferior customer service.

You don’t have to wonder how to treat a customer if you treat every customer as if they are your best customer.

Scott Lindsay is a web developer and entrepreneur. He is the founder of HighPowerSites and many other web projects. Get your own website online in just 5 minutes with HighPowerSites at: http://www.highpowersites.com. Start your own ebook business with BooksWealth at: http://www.bookswealth.com

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Tags: Attitude, Commodity, Convenience, Customer, Customer Doesn, Desert, Desert Highway, Exceptional Customer Service, Foodstuffs, Gas Station, Gas Stations, Hallmark, Highway, Law Of Supply And Demand, Leverage, Lone, Mentality, Motorists, Multiple Stores, Outrageous Prices, Regard, Resemblance, Service, Supply And Demand, Two Gentlemen
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Customer Service — Customer Loyalty Wins Sales

Friday, July 30th, 2010

by Graela

Customer Service — Customer Loyalty Wins Sales

Batteries not included. Three of the dumbest words.

Your Company spent millions of dollars to develop this wonderful product. Engineers spent countless hours creating and refining it. You spent additional millions of dollars in advertising to get me to buy it.

I bought it. I took it home and now it won’t work because YOU neglected to include the only part that WILL make it work. For a couple of extra bucks, your cost and mine, I’m frustrated and angry with you and your Company.

It’s the same with customer service.

No matter what you sell; whether it’s goods or services, big ticket or small, sales and customer service are not two separate pieces. Every sale must come with the customer service built in.

Exceptional customer service is NOT an extra cost of doing business. It is an investment in your own future success.

In the early 1950s, my uncle had a very small clothing store in Miami, Florida. In those days, Miami was a major entertainment center, with the biggest names in show business appearing at the major hotels, very similar to Las Vegas today.

One evening, as he was leaving the stage at the end of the early show, a young singer ripped his tuxedo jacket on a nail sticking out of the wall. It was after 8 P.M., all the clothing stores were closed.

The hotel management called the major stores and owners because the singer didn’t want to go on stage with a torn jacket or worse, no jacket.

None of the fancy clothing shop owners would leave their homes to accommodate the young man. Finally, in desperation, my uncle got the call. Would he come downtown with a couple of tuxedos?

Within an hour my uncle was at the hotel with 4 tuxedos. He did the fitting and tailoring right on the spot.

The young singer and the big hotel management were ecstatic. The singer tried to shove a few extra hundred dollar bills into my uncle’s hand, but he wouldn’t take the money, explaining that he was honored to have the opportunity to earn the business.

The singer promised that he would never forget my uncle’s kindness and would tell his show biz friends about my uncle. True to his word, the singer continued to tell his friends about my uncle, even as his singing career skyrocketed.

The young singer – Frank Sinatra.

My uncle – went from a tiny clothing store on the edges of oblivion to “Mickey Hayes – Clothier to the Stars”; his walls covered with hundreds of photographs of the biggest names in show business.

On the other side of the coin is INTEL, the major manufacturer of computer chips, and, a great company.

Some years ago, Intel’s newest chip had a design flaw that caused a problem in only the tiniest number of calculations, and only in highly complex situations. As this problem began to get reported in the press, owners of computers built with these new chips wanted replacements.

Intel’s management stated that these customers were somewhat stupid since only highly complex calculations in specialized situations would experience that problem and then, only on the rarest occasions. They said that they would replace the chip if the customer could substantiate the claim that their chip was flawed.

How stupid. If it only goes bad once in a zillion times, why not give a lifetime guarantee? Most of the customers would never run into that problem. If they had immediately offered the lifetime replacement guarantee, ALL of the customers would have had a very high degree of confidence that they would never need to take Intel up on their offer.

Intel finally did offer lifetime replacement – after worrying, offending and insulting millions of their customers.

We can all learn a valuable lesson from Nordstroms; the department store famous for customer service. Their service to customers is so incredible, that people go out of their way to shop there.

Mr. Nordstrom calls it ‘customer heroics’. “We do it because we want more business – NOT simply because we’re nice guys.”

I’ve always told my employees – “don’t save me ‘MY’ money. If it helps the customer, SPEND my money. Even if they make a mistake, they won’t be criticized if it helped the customer”.

Nordstrom, over a period of many years, has developed a corporate culture of service to the customer. Any corporate culture, if it is going to endure successfully, MUST take on a life of its own, apart from the wishes of management. It has to be adopted by every employee, because THEY each think that it’s a good idea.

Whether you are a 1 person operation or the largest company, you know what good customer service is. It’s the Golden Rule applied to business – “Do unto others”.

Listen to your customers’ spoken requests – and unspoken. They’ll tell you what they want. Add a large portion of your own good common sense. Make a commitment to yourself that you will give your customers, service beyond their highest expectations

If you will do these few simple things, I can guarantee you success beyond YOUR expectations.

Gary Wollin is a Warren Buffet style investment advisor with 45+ years of Wall Street experience. He has been regularly featured in many financial publications around the world. He writes and speaks on sales, customer loyalty, and the stock market. http://www.garywollin.com

Six Keys to Creating ?wow? Customer Service Experiences

Friday, July 9th, 2010

by lunaweb

Six Keys to Creating ?wow? Customer Service Experiences

Customers of every kind of business imaginable these days bemoan the state of customer service. While the global economy and the Internet have given businesses the opportunity to serve more clients than ever before, the trend has also given way to impersonal, lackluster customer service. It’s unfortunate that most businesses today don’t realize that they are regularly losing valuable customers if they don’t focus on providing an exceptional customer service experience.

In most businesses, once a customer begins dealing with the customer service department, he or she is already in a negative mindset. The best customer service representatives aren’t those that simply neutralize the problem. Outstanding customer service representatives take a negative and turn it into a positive that ensures the customer is not only happy, but is convinced he or she has had an outstanding experience – the Wow Factor – that he would not have gotten with any other company.

The key ingredients of the Wow experience are:

• Seamless Service

• Trustworthy Service

• Attentiveness

• Resourcefulness

• Courtesy

• Pro-active Service

Seamless Service means providing everything the customer needs, not just what is required to meet the minimum standards. It’s about making sure that they don’t have to wait and wonder. Customers will appreciate a smooth, seamless process for addressing their needs. If there are several steps needed to take care of their concerns, keep them in the loop – update them by email or with a quick phone call so that they know you are working on the situation and progress is being made. By keeping them abreast of what is going on, you are letting them know you haven’t forgotten about them and that you understand their concerns – reassurance and communication are powerful customer service tools.

Trustworthy Service is essential to retaining customers. Promising a customer anything and delivering nothing is the surest way to not only lose a customer, but get the kind of “word of mouth” bad press that can ruin you. Under promise and over deliver – If you promise a satisfactory solution and then go the extra mile to not only satisfy the customer, but gain their appreciation and “Wow” them, you will get word of mouth that will bring new customers to you.

Attentive Service means paying attention during and after the initial contact. How many times have you contacted customer service and been subjected to an obviously scripted response from the customer service representative? Does it give you the feeling they aren’t really listening, but just trying to get to the end of their canned presentation?

Attentiveness should run through every customer service experience, from listening carefully to the customer’s concerns to following up after the exchange is over to make sure their needs have been met. Listening isn’t just about hearing – it is about understanding what is really being said. The words are just the beginning –what about the customer’s tone of voice? Her mood? Is she disappointed, angry or frustrated? Keying in to the customer’s mood and responding appropriately is essential, and it means not following a script.

Resourcefulness means finding solutions when there appear to be none. Many companies have iron-clad policies that must be followed whenever a problem arises; however, sometimes a customer won’t be satisfied by the “company line” approach. Resourceful customer service representatives know that there is always a way to move beyond the standard procedures in order to make a customer happy. Resourcefulness involves finding a solution when a solution isn’t apparent. This may mean moving up the chain of command before the customer demands to talk to your superior. Companies with excellent customer service also give their representatives some leeway so that they can come up with creative solutions on their own. When a customer senses that you are going beyond the norm to help them, they will feel valued and respected.

Courtesy is a commodity that is becoming rarer every day. It takes so little to be polite but it is becoming a lost art. Say please when you ask a customer a question, thank them for their information and take your time talking to them. Nothing makes a customer feel more devalued than being treated like a number. Use the person’s name, make requests rather than demands and know when to apologize. When something goes wrong for a customer, they want to hear that you understand their frustration and that you are genuinely sorry that they are being inconvenienced. It takes nothing to say, “I’m so sorry you aren’t satisfied and I hope we can do something to correct this.”

Pro-Active Service means not waiting for the customer to come up with a solution that you simply follow through on. A pro-active customer service representative anticipates the needs of the customer and follows through. Don’t wait for the customer to ask you what you are willing to do – anticipate the question and answer it before they can ask. If they call and say they aren’t satisfied, apologize and immediately suggest some solutions. Customers want you to take the lead – acknowledge their unhappiness, offer a solution or solutions and explain to them how you are going to follow through. Pro-Active service means taking the lead, which will reassure your customers that you know what you are doing and that you will follow through.

If you keep these six keys in mind – seamless service, trustworthiness, attentiveness, resourcefulness ,courtesy and pro-active service – you will be able to offer every customer the Wow Customer Service Experience that inspires loyalty and keeps customers coming back for more.

Robert Moment is an innovative customer service consultant, business coach and author of “Invisible Profits: The Power of Exceptional Customer Service”. Visit http://www.customerservicetrainingskills.com and sign-up for the FREE 5 Day e-course titled, “Creating Wow Customer Service Experiences”.

Service Wueste

Posts Tagged ‘Exceptional Customer Service’

Customer Service – On A Lone Desert Highway

Customer Service — Customer Loyalty Wins Sales

Six Keys to Creating ?wow? Customer Service Experiences

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