Value Delivered Through Customer Service | Griffin Training

Posted by admin in Customer Service on Aug 24th, 2010 | 0 comments

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.

Customers Direct Point of Contact – Customer Service Representatives

Posted by admin in Customer Service on Aug 19th, 2010 | 0 comments

Customer service representatives (CSRs)

Interact with customers to provide information in response to inquiries about products and services and to handle and resolve complaints. First point of customer contact for general inquiries like pricing, products, scheduling etc maintain business relation with clients by providing accurate service so as to promote customer loyalty.

CSRs are people employed by companies to serve as a direct point of contact for customers. In the 24/7 worlds today companies need to secure their customers receive an adequate level of service or help with their questions and concerns. Such customers may be individual consumers or other companies each with different needs. Many companies provide customer service to path of the telephone through call centers. The Customer service representatives interact with customers to provide information in response to inquiries about products or services. They also handle and resolve complaints and communicate with customers through a variety of means. Telephone is the most famous but increasingly customer service is supplied by e-mail. Faxes and regular mail parallelism and even a direct meeting can also be used by the CSR. Some customer service representatives handle general questions and complaints, whereas others particularize in a particular area.

Customer Service Representative is explain by the following points: –

1. Customer Services

“Good customer service is the lifeblood of any business.”

Excellent customer service is one of the few ways to achieve a sustainable competitive advantage. Customers are satisfied or dissatisfied with the level of customer service provided by CSRs. Good customer service is the lifeblood of any business. You can offer promotions and slash prices to bring in as many new customers as you want, but unless you can get some of those customers to come back, your business won’t be profitable for long. Customer Services are increasingly changing the way customers interact with firms to create service outcomes. Good customer service can increase your customer loyalty rate, leading to greater profitability.

2. Customer Satisfaction

“No business can exist without customers.”

Customer Satisfaction may be measured directly by survey and expressed as a percentage, such as Percent of Customers Completely Satisfied. Providing good service in a pleasant manner and meeting the customer’s expectations is also known as Customer Satisfaction. Customer satisfaction is the fulfillment of customers’ requirements or needs.

Consider this, only 4% of all customers with problems complain. The average customer with a problem eventually tells 9 other people.

In other side, three types of relationship were identified:

1. Satisfaction-as-love

2. Satisfaction-as-trust

3. Satisfaction-as-control

Each responded to the same failure in different ways. Satisfaction-as-love customers had emotional bonds with the product category and thus reaffirmed their loyalty following the failure. Satisfaction-as-trust customers saw the service failure and inadequate recovery as a breach of the brand’s implied promise and thus excited the relationship. Satisfaction-as-control customers took charge of the situation, using their status to improve their situation and then defended the brand.

3. Customer loyalty

Multiple regression analysis assessed the impact on customer loyalty of four key constructs of relationship marketing: -

1. Trust,

2. Commitment,

3. Communication,

4. Conflict Handling.

These four variables have a significant effect and predict a good proportion of the variance in customer loyalty.

The stairs of Customer Loyalty shows you how to consciously shape a plan for developing your customer relationship skills in a more congruent manner and is a benchmark in fostering and promoting permanent customer relationships for businesses of all sizes.

4. Customer Orientation

There are seven keys that strongly indicate a customer orientation attitude:

• Thinking and talking about clients a lot

• Continually assessing your customers’ perceptions

• Resolving priority issues in favor of the customer

• Giving in, compromising, adding value for the customer

• Making amends to customers for poor treatment

• Employing a “whatever it takes” policy to satisfy special needs

• Redesigning processes, re-deploying resources and when they get in the way of service quality

5. Mass customization

Mass Customization is a way of building and selling products such that the product features are broken down and offered to the consumer as choices. Mass customization, in marketing, manufacturing, and management, is the use of flexible computer-aided manufacturing systems to produce custom output. Those systems combine the low unit costs of mass production processes with the flexibility of individual customization.

The flourish surrounding mass customization increased dramatically with the advent the Internet. Companies saw how e-commerce could allow an individual customer to tailor a product to his or her own specifications and then order it. The vision of mass customization seemed to promise manufacturers several benefits: They could offer service, achieve greater levels of customer satisfaction and loyalty, gather advance information on market trends, and reduce inventory levels.

So, what I learned from my research was delivering consistently good service quality is difficult but profitable for service organizations. In many services, quality occurs during service delivery, usually in an interaction between the customer and contact personnel of the service firm. So, that service quality is highly dependent on the performance of employees.

Contact Us : Call Centers India

Email : sales@callcentersindia.com

Phone : 206.384.4669

Open a Dollar Store – Does Your Store Pass the Customer Service Test?

Posted by admin in Customer Service on Aug 13th, 2010 | 0 comments

When you open a dollar store you soon discover there are so many different, yet important aspects to the business.  There are so many responsibilities that must be dealt with on a daily basis that it can be very difficult to get them all covered.  Still other duties might come up weekly or monthly.  Yet they are often just as important.  One of the most critical responsibilities you face is customer service.  This is a 24×7 duty that cannot be forgotten even for a moment.  In fact it is among the most critical responsibilities you are charged with handling.

When you open a dollar store, success in the customer service arena involves not just your performance, but also that of every employee.  In this article I will present 4 critical questions to ask as a test of your overall customer service performance.  So let’s get started.

1. How skilled and competent are you and your employees at providing memorable service to each and every customer?  It is important to offer every new employee customer service training during their initial job orientation.  Be sure to set clear expectations regarding customer service at the same time.  Experienced employees should receive periodic reminders, updates and reinforcement through daily feedback and in writing on their performance reviews.  .

2. Is there true commitment, caring and satisfaction associated link to your business?  One of the real keys to becoming successful at customer service revolves around having a commitment and caring about the job, company and your work.  No matter how hard you try, if you or your employees are unhappy it will be reflected in the overall quality and success of your customer service.

3. Do you and your employees take deep pride in providing outstanding professional customer service at all times?  As mentioned above, when you open a dollar store with plans for success, you are committing to providing only the best of customer service.  Be sure to reward those employees who role model exactly the customer service you wish for your business.  Don’t forget there is great power in you role modeling outstanding customer service at all times as well

4. Let’s finish with the most important question of all.  How well do you and your employees meet the responsibility of providing outstanding customer service?  It is critical that each and every customer who comes in contact with your business receive the same high-quality customer service.  If there is less than top-quality customer service provided, overall satisfaction is jeopardized.

If you plan to open a dollar store know the quality of your customer service helps to determine your overall success. The measure of customer service includes many metrics.  Customer complaints and how they are handled is certainly to be included.  More positive measurements include customer retention, average sale size, sales volume, the number of sales transactions and frequency of customer visits.  Don’t forget to examine word-of-mouth referrals from existing customers as well.  These and others metrics provide the numbers to support your overall level of customer service performance.

To your dollar store business success!

Silly Service Has Its Serious Side: Test your Customer Service Knowledge!

Posted by admin in Customer Service on Aug 7th, 2010 | 0 comments

Who says service is serious? Customer service can be silly too. Take this fun quiz to test your customer service knowledge. You may be a service ace if you both pick the correct answer to each of these ten questions, and understand why these answers are correct.

1. A complaining customer is:

A. Always right

B. Almost right

C. Often lying

D. Always the customer

2. Customers who complain:

A. Had unhappy childhoods

B. Are genetically predisposed to be sourpusses

C. Have trouble in their primary relationships

D. Are doing you a service in identifying what isn’t working in your business or organization

3. The best reward for your customer service representatives is:

A. Earplugs and punching bags

B. Valium or other mind-numbing drugs

C. Recognition and appreciation on your part

D. Anger management seminars

4. CRM stands for:

A. Customers Rarely Matter

B. Can’t Remember Much

C. Communicating Random Meaning

D. Customers Rudimentarily Managed

E. Customer Relationship Management

5. Customers who complain want . . .

A. Something for nothing

B. To be heard and have their experience validated

C. To vent for the sport of it

D. To be made majority shareholders in the company

6. Customer Service departments:

A. Are the afterthought that cleans up messes other departments cause

B. Build customer loyalty

C. Are leaders in understanding customer behavior patterns and market research

7. For a company to be considered service-oriented:

A. It must mention customer service in its mission statement

B. At least 18.3% of its employees must work in the customer service department

C. Its managers must at one time have been CSRs

D. Customer service must be addressed by all departments

8. A Call Center is defined as:

A. The midpoint in duration of a telephone call

B. A revenue sink hole

C. A place where middle-of-the-road calls coexist with liberal and arch-conservative calls

D. A location where complaints and problems are converted into successful saves for your customers and your company

9. Customer Care is:

A. A managed care medical program for customers

B. A nifty alliterative phrase that looks good in company brochures

C. A new program where customers care for themselves

D. A philosophy wherein the customer is wrapped in service even before a problem arises

10. Customer Service Culture is

A. A new form of yogurt where the lid removes itself for you

B. Behavior being analyzed in a Petrie dish for contagions

C. A mythical civilization in which everyone smiles and welcomes you when they meet

D. An environment where customer service permeates the thinking of the entire company

KEY

1. D. Customers are often wrong but they never stop being the customer. Right or wrong they are to be accorded respect and cared for. Focus on the insights their complaint offers.

2. D. Complaining customers alert you to systemic problems before they drive off more customers. Their complaints represent many more customers who may not spend the time to tell you about problems, instead just leaving you for your competitors.

3. C. Your staff deserves and thrive on recognition and appreciation. Take the time to celebrate them collectively and individually. Whether through cards, gifts, surprises, outings and acknowledgements at company functions, let them know how important, valued and appreciated they are to you and the company.

4. E. CRM refers to systems designed to track and cater to each customer’s whims and preferences over a lifetime. CRM is about managing customer relationships over the long haul by attending to their individual needs.

5. B. Complaining customers have several needs. Implicit in their actual complaint is also a need to be heard and their unhappiness acknowledged. Fixing the problem is important. So is letting them know you understand their displeasure and feel for them. One without the other is an incomplete remedy for customer complaints. Don’t forget the emotional component in complaints.

6. B and C. When you solve a problem for a customer you actually build confidence and allegiance. You’ve proven you stand behind your products or service, giving customers a warm and fuzzy feeling of safety and protection. As well, you tap the pulse of the customers. Their complaints and feedback give valuable insight into how well your products are assembled, documented, sold and hold up. Listening to customers tells you a great deal about your company’s products and services (and your competitors’ too) from real life customers. That’s invaluable!

7. D. A Customer Service orientation must transcend the service department. All departments must understand and model good customer service for the company to be considered strong in service. Many problems can be avoided outright by attending to customer service. Why should the customer service department carry the weight of service for the entire company. Don’t operate under the adage “never enough time to do it right but always enough time to do it over.” Get it right at the source, in all departments.

8. D. Make your call center is a shining example of your company’s commitment to its customers. Your center is a visible symbol of your company’s commitment to customer success.

9. D. Customer Care is a philosophy wherein customers are cared for by a company – the entire time they’re customers. Care isn’t just to be administered as a salve for problems. Demonstrate care from the start and your customers will flock to your products and services.

10. D. Customer Service Culture is the infusion of service ideals into every department, from sales, shipping and receiving to legal, human resources and beyond.

Customer Service: Essential to the Success of Your Business

Posted by admin in Customer Service on Aug 2nd, 2010 | 0 comments

Customer Service is basically the way you interact with your client before, during and after a sale is executed or a service is rendered.

In this age of computers and internet a lot of innovations are happening that make life easier. However, with these innovations client services have become impersonal and most of the time scripted.

In business, the customer is king still holds true; no matter how far-fetched or unrealistic some of their demands may be. Everybody knows that for a business to thrive a loyal customer base must be nurtured and managed – customers who are willing to do repeat transactions with the company. Each satisfied customer expands the business exponentially. For behind every single happy client lies 10 more potential customers.

Any strong marketing support that a company provides for its products and services will still fall short of its objective if customer service is non-existent or lousy at best.

So how is customer service defined?

A customer service is considered good when the service comes with a smile. It is going beyond the perceived value of the product or service. It is far from the overly mechanical customer service scripts that we all have become accustomed to.

It is the need for human interaction in every encounter with a customer and their issues and problems done in a satisfactory manner.

In this modern world of technology where everything is viewed as borderless and seamless, assigning a generic department to handle customer service issues is an outdated practice.

Company managers are already aware that clients deal with employees in different levels of the organization. Each individual represents the company. Should any untoward incident happen involving the interaction between a company employee and a client, there is high probability that unwanted detrimental information about the company will be disseminated by the aggrieved customer. The solution to this problem to prevent negative publicity is to have a well-trained team on good customer service and rules of engagement with the clients.

The internet also introduced a new approach to customer satisfaction. A web marketing company relies on a sort of self-service style or approach in managing customer’s needs. A visitor to their website, upon purchase of products or services online, will more likely transact again with the company if he sees that everything he needs can be had with a click of the mouse. The user friendliness of the site from having easy access to its support staff to filing a complaint or returning a product makes for a great customer experience.  

Marketing support is an integral part in bringing in the initial money to the company. The only thing that will keep in the profits, in the end, is rendering good customer service.