Shep Hyken's Blog, page 173

5 Top Customer Service Articles For the Week of February 27, 2017

Each week I read a number of customer service articles from various online resources. Here are my top five picks from last week. I have added my comment about each article and would like to hear what you think too.

The 7 Best Retailers for Customer Service by Jamie Grill-Goodman

(RIS) In today’s omnichannel climate where differentiation is increasingly difficult and customer expectations are heightened, customer service is critical for delivering differentiated shopping experiences. The “20th Annual Mystery Shopping Study” recognizes seven retailers who excel in customer service.

My Comment: It doesn’t matter what type of business you have, there are plenty of lessons you can learn from the top customer focused retailers. This short article lists the top seven retailers and a few stats and facts about them. Take time to Google these companies and study them. Learn what they are doing right.

How Positive Customer Interactions Drive Positive Results by Courtney Simpson

(CMSWire) There are countless, constantly evolving factors affecting human communication. However, the desired outcome of communication is almost always the same. Each party wants to gain value from the interaction. Customer experience (CX) industry leaders understand this — and must create this value for customers as well as their employees.

My Comment: This short article reminds us of something very important: The best customer service is typically driven by human interaction. Yet so many companies are moving to self-service, text messaging from chatbots (computers) and other de-humanized interactions. There is a balance that must be struck between human and automated. Customers do want quick automated service, until they need to talk to a person. Then the company should give the customer easy access to a live customer service agent.

Personalization Becomes an Imperative for Brand Loyalty by Jim Tierney

(Loyalty 360) Personalization is becoming a consumer expectation and a brand imperative to engender customer loyalty.

My Comment: Personalization is a big trend in delivering a better customer experience. Customers want it and are expecting it. This article from Loyalty 360 quotes a study from Lenati that reveals that companies that were successful in personalization saw improvement in profitability. Specifically, 79 percent of organizations that exceeded revenue goals have a documented personalization strategy. Great information with stats and facts that will compel you develop (if you haven’t already) a personalization strategy.

If a Live Person Isn’t Answering Your Phone, You’re Losing Customers by Conversational

(Conversational) Cutting corners in customer service is not uncommon, but it’s also not without consequence. Making your customer experience as enjoyable, simple, and efficient as possible is not only in the best interest of your customers, but also the livelihood of your business.

My Comment: How many of us love talking to the automated response systems when we call a company? (That’s a rhetorical question!) There is definitely a place for the automated or robotic response, however it needs to be the right place. This excellent articles points out several very good reasons to want a live person answering your company’s phones.

7 Foundations Of A Great CX Program by Ben Motteram

(Call Center Week) His ‘manifesto’ for structuring a colony from a blank canvas (literally a greenfield site) got me to thinking: if I was structuring a CX program from scratch, what would be the major principles I’d use?

My Comment: If you haven’t created a formal customer experience (CX) program, this article would be a good place to start. Ben Motteram shares seven great ideas to begin the process. My favorites are numbers four and five.

BONUS

10 Quotes To Inspire Better Customer Service by Sharpen

(Sharpen) Here are 10 quotes to get the wheels turning and inspire your next improvement to your customer service strategy.

My Comment: Here’s a bonus for this week’s list. This short article has ten customer service quotes to inspire you and your employees. We chose a favorite quote, have it printed and put it in a frame for all to see. Each week we change the quote out. Just an inspiring reminder that helps us be… Amazing!

Shep Hyken is a customer service expert, professional speaker and New York Times bestselling business author. For information contact or www.hyken.com . For information on The Customer Focus™ customer service training programs go to www.thecustomerfocus.com . Follow on Twitter: @Hyken

Save

The post 5 Top Customer Service Articles For the Week of February 27, 2017 appeared first on Shep Hyken.

Guest Blog: Is Your Contact Center Prepared to Handle Breaking News?

This week on our Friends on Friday guest blog post my colleague, Kathleen Hettinger, discusses the importance of handling breaking news and how your organization should be prepared. In this age of 24/7 news, I find this a pertinent subject for all of us. – Shep Hyken

In this age of 24/7 news channels and social media, we’ve all come accustomed to breaking news stories about celebrities and politicians. Yet there are times when businesses themselves become “trending” news stories and special reports. Whether it’s negative news of a natural disaster, a C-level scandal, a product recall, or a workplace tragedy, or a positive event like a product innovation, an upbeat earnings report, or an IPO, your contact center must be prepared for when there are dramatic increases in interactions across all communication channels.

Nearly every business has the potential of having some type of breaking news. This is why it’s essential to be prepared for an unexpected spike in interactions. Certainly, the alternative of having customers on hold for hours during a critical time is not a wise strategy. So how can your contact center best prepare for breaking news? The following are key areas to consider.

Team Coordination

How will agents get the news they need to share with customers? This may require input from your public relations team as well as legal, marketing, and other departments. The time to determine how news is gathered and disseminated is long before news hits. By having a plan in place, you can go a long way to prevent agents from saying something incorrect or even potentially damaging to a customer.

Agent Training

Just as agents should receive ongoing training in their daily tasks, they also need to be prepared for managing the unexpected, such as a newsworthy event that can cause a significant jump in calls. Preparation should include coaching in how to address customer concerns as well as training in backup and emergency systems that are brought online to manage call spikes.

Scripts

Asking agents to address customer concerns following breaking news without guidelines on what they should say is a recipe for disaster with potential legal implications. Although it’s impossible to predict every potential issue that can generate news and high call volumes, there are obvious possibilities that can be predicted. It’s wise to develop some basic scripts or outlines that can guide agents through customer conversations if and when a breaking news event occurs.

Desktop Integration

With the average contact center now managing more than five communication channels, the need for desktop integration is a must on a slow day. On a busy day, having agents shift between systems, databases, and screens due to a lack of integration is a recipe for long hold times and angry customers. A newsworthy event requires agents to increase their efficiency, and this can only happen if they have the tools necessary for doing their jobs effectively. With a unified desktop, news can also be deployed to agents from back offices, and real-time updates can flow quickly to those on the frontlines with customers.

Routing

Routing calls can be a big challenge during peak times caused by breaking news. The majority of contact centers use queue-based routing, which can be particularly inflexible. With an overload of calls, there may be the need to onboard additional contact centers or to shift some agents from one channel to another. This is when an orchestrated routing solution can be a much better choice.

Call Back

In some cases, there may simply be too many calls for your contact center to manage. Rather than having an extended queue of customers waiting on hold, a callback solution can enable you to offer a return call to them at a more convenient time. Callback can be offered to those using voice channels, as well as digital channels like web chat, IVR, and mobile apps.

IVR

A well-designed IVR system can be a big benefit during a news event. Callers can be given details in a greeting or an on-hold message to minimize the number of calls reaching agents. As well, options can be set up for customers to be connected directly to specialized agents who have been designated to manage customer inquiries about the news. It’s also important to remember that an IVR system is only as good as the recording that it plays for callers. During a news event, it’s likely that you will have to update recordings, so it’s a good idea to have prerecorded messages that can be played and a readily available voice talent who can quickly create recordings to address customer questions.

Social Media Management

During a news event, customers are likely to turn to social media to get information and to provide feedback for others. A single customer with a large online community can cause a tremendous amount of damage to your brand if they are sharing negative comments with hundreds, if not thousands of others. Having a social media plan in place specifically for these times is a must for containing irate customers and keeping your customers up-to-date.

Unexpected news can happen to even the best run businesses. How it’s shared can make all the difference. With a little preparation and a good plan in place, you’ll be positioned for dealing with it in the most seamless way possible.

Kathleen Hettinger works at Virtual Hold Technology as customer experience and technology implementation liaison,  implementing training programs to current and prospective clients.  

For more articles from Shep Hyken and his guest contributors go to customerserviceblog.com.

Read Shep’s latest Forbes Article: Every Employee Needs Customer Service Training — Here’s Why

Save

Save

Save

The post Guest Blog: Is Your Contact Center Prepared to Handle Breaking News? appeared first on Shep Hyken.

How Are You Helping Your Customers Self-Confirm the Sale?

Just imagine if you were the Director of Sales for a private jet company. Would that be a dream job?

Jordan Zabel deals with high-end customers who expect high-end customer service because he is the Director of Sales for Jet Linx, a private jet company that offers their services to corporate and private members. As you might imagine, anyone that can afford to fly in a private jet has very discerning taste . . . and often along with it, sky-high expectations.

Jordan knows exactly what it takes to acquire these demanding customers. He needs to sell an excellent product while at the same time delivering the highest level of customer service. And, once the sale is made, he knows what it will take to keep those customers, which is to maintain that same level of service he demonstrated through the sales process, while maybe even increasing the altitude a bit.

So, all of this seems like common sense, right? A high-priced service usually is accompanied by an excellent customer experience. Just think of the level of customer care that hotels like the Ritz-Carlton demonstrate. So what is the challenge for people who deal with these high-end clients like Jordan Zabel does?

Zabel says, “Too many times a company’s marketing propaganda just doesn’t match the customers’ experiences after the sale. It’s all just hype. Hot air. At Jet Linx, I always want my customers to know their decision to do business with us was a good one, anytime they think of us.”

In other words, Zabel wants to live up to the promises and expectations that his marketing initially created for his prospects-turned-customers. After the sale, he wants his customers to continuously self-confirm that they made the right decision in choosing him and Jet Linx in the first place.

The key word here is self-confirm. What are you doing before, during and after the sale that continuously reinforces the customer’s choice to do business with you? If you have good sales skills, sure, that can get you some business to start. But what about getting those customers to return, time after time? That’s the key to ongoing success and a steady revenue stream. It’s all in what happens after the customer’s buying decision that counts. It’s about delivering amazing customer service after the sale.

I’ve written and talked about Joey Coleman’s concept about The First 100 Days. What happens during the first 100 days after the sale can confirm that the customer made a good decision to work with you at the beginning. We want our customers, at any time, to always be self-confirming their decision. When they do, it will lead to the next sale, and the next. It builds a stronger relationship. It potentially leads to customer loyalty and maybe even evangelism, where your customers share their positive experiences about you with their family, friends and colleagues. That’s the power of delivering a level of customer service that self-confirms a customer’s choice to do business with you!

Shep Hyken is a customer service expert, keynote speaker and New York Times bestselling business author. For information contact or www.hyken.com. For information on The Customer Focus™ customer service training programs go to www.thecustomerfocus.com. Follow on Twitter: @Hyken

(Copyright © MMXVII, Shep Hyken)

Save

Save

Save

The post How Are You Helping Your Customers Self-Confirm the Sale? appeared first on Shep Hyken.

Amazing Business Radio: Chip Bell

Chip Bell on How to Create Customer Evangelists

What is the best way to get your customers to truly become your advocates?

Shep Hyken speaks with keynote speaker and author Chip Bell about the best way to inspire customer loyalty.

First Up:

Shep Hyken’s opening comments focus on how to inspire loyalty with your customers. He challenges you to go back to your team and ask them to take a look at other industries. How have companies in other industries been able to create what he calls Moments of Magic® for their customers? Next ask the team, “What would happen if we could do the same thing here?”

Featured Interview:

Shep begins his interview by asking Chip Bell about his definition of customer loyalty. Bell says that there are many ways to define a loyal customer. Some experts define loyalty as a customer who comes back. Others say it is someone who buys more, or trusts you more. Some even say, in the case of purchasers of Harley-Davidson jackets or Bass Pro Shop Shirts, it is someone who uses your product as part of their identity.

But Bell asserts that the best expression of customer loyalty is customer advocacy. In other words, the customer talks about you, tells stories about you, and tweets about you. In essence, the customer becomes an extension of your sales and marketing staff. They’re not just coming back; they’re bringing their friends with them when they do come back. In fact, they have become your evangelists.

Bell talks about the concept of “value add,” which is taking what the customer expects and adding a bit more to the experience. The challenge you face, is that as the customer’s expectations climb, you’ll quickly run out of additional offerings.  Instead, Bell suggests the concept of “value unique,” which is to create for the customer an experience that is unique, unusual and unexpected. Yet, at the same time, the experience is appropriate and simple.

Bell insists that value unique is not a process to try to create a ten percent increase in the level of your customer service. Instead he challenges you to ask, what would I do if I wanted to increase my level of service by 100%? What would I do totally differently?

Top Takeaways:

The best expression of customer loyalty is customer advocacy. This goes beyond asking the Net Promoter Score question of “On a scale of 0 to 10, what is the likelihood that you would recommend us?”
Your customers are not just comparing you to others in your industry, but to those in other industries who provide a gold standard customer experience.
Bell talks about the concept of “value add,” which is taking what the customer expects and adding a bit more to the experience. The challenge you face, though, is that as the customer’s expectations climb, you’ll quickly run out of additional offerings. Instead, Bell suggests the concept of “value unique,” which is to create for the customer an experience that is unique, unusual and unexpected.

ABOUT:

Chip Bell has helped many Fortune 100 companies dramatically enhance their bottom lines and marketplace reputation through innovative customer-centric strategies. Bell reveals the best practices from the organizations leading the customer loyalty charge, giving his audiences powerful cutting-edge ideas and unique strategies they can immediately put into practice. Bell has authored eight national best-selling books. His latest book is Kaleidoscope: Delivering Innovative Service That Sparkles. 

Shep Hyken is a customer service and experience expert, best-selling author and your host of Amazing Business Radio.

“Intention of the customer is good, but their behavior is much more important.” – Chip Bell

      

This episode of Amazing Business Radio with Shep Hyken answers the following questions… and more:

How do you define customer loyalty?
Why is looking outside your industry one of the best ways to improve your customer experience?
Why isn’t the Net Promoter Score by itself good enough?
What is the difference between “value add” and “value unique”?
How can you get a customer to become a true advocate or evangelist for you?

Save

Save

The post Amazing Business Radio: Chip Bell appeared first on Shep Hyken.

5 Top Customer Service Articles For the Week of February 20, 2017

Each week I read a number of customer service articles from various online resources. Here are my top five picks from last week. I have added my comment about each article and would like to hear what you think too.

7 Impressive Tactics to Build Customer Loyalty and Create Your Own ‘Super Users’ by Anton Kraly

(Performance Marketer) There are so many customer loyalty building tactics out there. Unfortunately, most are terribly outdated or just noise cluttering the effective tactics. We busted through that noise found seven powerful tactics you can start using now to take your loyal customers to ‘super user’ status!

My Comment: This short article includes a list of six ways to drive customer loyalty. I have two favorites. Number one on the list is about solving a customer’s problems. Isn’t that what they want? (Rhetorical question!) And, number seven is about contributing to the community. Customers love to know a business is involved in charity or community effort. It can create an emotional connection.

Customer Experience Excellence Centre Analysis by Nunwood

(KPMG) For seven years the Excellence Centre has been comprehensively researching the UK and US markets through the Customer Experience Excellence (CEE) programme.

My Comment: This is a comprehensive 36 page report, loaded with ideas, stats and examples about customer experience “moments” that matter. Pay attention to their six pillars of customer experience, especially the one on personalization. That’s a major trend that can give a company a big competitive edge. You’ll have to download this report, but it is well worth it.

Here’s The Number One Reason You’re Letting Yourself Get Away With Providing Bad Customer Service by Bob Phibbs

(Retail Doctor) Bad customer service could best be summed up by Lily Tomlin’s character Ernestine, “We’re the phone company; we don’t have to care.”

My Comment: I’m always intrigued by the different definitions people have for customer service. This article by Bob Phibbs begins with a good one: Customer service is the ability to make one person feel, for just a few minutes, like they are the most important person in the world. From there he gives some great examples of good and bad service with three big takeaways at the end.

21 Ways to Increase Motivation and Engagement with Contact Center Employees by Michael Becker

(Sharpen) According to Quantum Workplace, customer service employees are among the least engaged at work, falling behind human resources, sales, marketing, engineering, R&D, operations, finance and IT, in that order.

My Comment: Our friends at Sharpen keep putting out great content. The title of this article indicates that it is focused on contact centers, which it is. But, even if you aren’t in a contact center, this is definitely worth taking the time to read. There are plenty of good ideas that are applicable to almost any job.

Customer Success: Nearly everything you need to know by Eric Johnson

(Typeform) Customer success is a vehicle for helping customers succeed with your product, beyond expectations. How? By helping users adopt your product, by being there when your customers need you, and by reaching out with solutions people didn’t even know they needed.

And that fits right into your business goal: to proactively impact customer lifetime value by increasing retention and driving growth.

My Comment: “Customer Success” is a phrase that has become popular in the last two or three years. Helping customers be more successful with your products and services is important to getting them to become repeat customers (and hopefully loyal customers). This is a BIG article with a lot of great information.

BONUS

10 Customer Experience Influencers You Really Should Follow by Adam Ramshaw

(Genroe) There is no shortage of data on the interwebs but much of it is not worth reading. The trick is to find the information written by the people that add value and challenge your thinking. Then listen to what they say and hone your ideas against them.

My comment: One of the ways I keep growing professionally is through lots of reading, and much of what I read comes from following experts and influencers in the customer service and experience world. Adam Ramshaw of Genroe in Australia has done us all a great service and put together a list of the top ten experts that you should follow. These are the people who have the information you need to know. (And, I’m honored and humbled to be included on the list. Thank you Adam and Genroe!)

Shep Hyken is a customer service expert, professional speaker and New York Times bestselling business author. For information contact or www.hyken.com . For information on The Customer Focus™ customer service training programs go to www.thecustomerfocus.com . Follow on Twitter: @Hyken

Save

Save

The post 5 Top Customer Service Articles For the Week of February 20, 2017 appeared first on Shep Hyken.

Guest Blog: 4 Clear Links Between Customer Service and Online Reviews

This week on our Friends on Friday guest blog post my colleague, Ben Roberts, writes about the link between customer service and online reviews. A negative review, like any complaint, is an opportunity to show how good you are. The difference is that review sites take that opportunity public, which can be good; very good! – Shep Hyken

I’m a huge believer in the power of online reviews. I see them as an incredible way of businesses proving their value. They are also a part of your business whether you’d choose to embrace them or not. I also think customer service is an integral aspect of any business, and that by improving service, you build customers for life.

Therefore, in this article, I am going to set out four very clear links between customer service and online reviews. These links will show you why you shouldn’t just try to improve customer service, or encourage online reviews, you should integrate both. Why? The answers are below . . .

1.Good customer service boosts positive reviews.

As a company if you provide good customer service, you are more likely to gain positive reviews. It’s really not rocket science. Whenever you look at online reviews, you are guaranteed to see reviews (positive and negative). After all if a business resolves an issue quickly and efficiently, 95% of unhappy customers return to the business.

 

Reviews aid continuous improvement.

Reviews provide feedback, this feedback can be used then to predict issues and enable companies to take a proactive steps towards continually improving. Genuine online reviews by your customers are one of the single best methods of obtaining honest feedback, because people leave reviews to inform others. They want to be heard and they want to be useful to their peers, and whether they know it or not these reviews can and should be used by businesses. After all those who stand still, get left behind.

Reviews themselves can sometimes need a customer service response.

Some reviews will require a customer service response. There are people which use reviews as a place to vent and rage, but there are also those that have genuine concerns, issues and grievances. If you aren’t paying attention to reviews then you aren’t paying attention to your customers.

If a customer goes out of their way to complain, it’s because they care, and believe a situation can at least be improved (if not solved). Reviews are a great avenue for being able to address issues publicly and after all, as Jay Baer says in his book Hug your Haters – “Customer service is a spectator sport. If you are showing that you are paying attention, and attempting to solve the issues, that’s half of the battle.”

Reviews and customer service are important in the decision making process.

Price is no longer the determining factor when customers are deciding which goods and services to spend their hard earned salaries on. Yet, it’s still easy for companies to compete on price. That’s why companies still do it, and that’s why companies that pride themselves on customer service and it as a differentiator.

According to research done by Shopify in 2016: the mental gap between reading a review and making a decision to purchase from a business is ridiculously small, and typically results in a yes/no decision almost immediately.

What next?

By improving customer service, and by incorporating online reviews into your business strategy you are providing customers ample reasons to spend their time and money with you.

What I find so brilliant about this is that customer service and reviews can operate completely separately from each other. But, that is not how you get the best out of either. It’s a case of 1 + 1 = 3.

Remember, if you are going to offer amazing customer service, you should encourage your customers to shout about it, because after all people believe other people!

Ben Roberts heads up the marketing for Heinnie Haynes, which is one of the UK’s largest outdoor eCommerce websites. A big focus for Ben and the company is on customer service and experience. Ben actively encourages customers to leave ratings and reviews of the company both on the companies’ products, as well as on 3rd party review sites. These reviews are then used to help continually improve the business, build trust, and boost sales. He is firm believer in the power of online reviews and customer service as an influential marketing tool.

For more articles from Shep Hyken and his guest contributors go to customerserviceblog.com.

Read Shep’s latest Forbes Article: Three Ways To Create An Engaging Customer Experience That Drives Sales

 

Save

Save

Save

Save

Save

The post Guest Blog: 4 Clear Links Between Customer Service and Online Reviews appeared first on Shep Hyken.

Sometimes Doing What’s Best for Customers Isn’t Always Going to Make Them Happy

What does it mean to be a customer-centric company?

That seems to be the question of the week. It started off with one of our subscribers emailing in the question, followed by two reporters wanting my take on this now-popular phrase for their interviews.

If you Google the words customer centric (or centricity), you will find many definitions from different sources that are all very similar. I actually prefer using the term customer-focused over customer-centric. A general definition of a customer-centric or customer-focused organization is one in which everything is centered around the customer. In other words, all decisions that are made, the good ones, bad ones and tough ones, always keep the customer in mind. Discussions about every new system being put into place, every new line of merchandise being developed, every new location that is being planned, every website change – in one word, everything – warrants a discussion about how it will impact the customer. In addition, all employees recognize their role in the customer’s experience, even those employees who never have direct contact with a customer.

A couple of examples will make this point.

After hearing multiple requests from customers, a manufacturer decides to add a new color to a line of merchandise. Why? It’s a reasonable request and won’t cost much to set up for the new color. As a result, the customers are happy because of the extra choice. The company’s decision was made because they knew their customers were asking for it. The company listened and responded. It was obvious that the decision of adding another color would make a positive customer impact. This one was easy.

But, what about a tough decision that a company knows will not be received well by the customer, such as a price increase? Raising prices may not make the customer happy, but what if the company doesn’t take this action? If the price doesn’t go up, in order to continue to sell the same product profitably, something else may have to give. Not raising the price might mean a compromise in quality or service. The choice to raise prices, even knowing the customer will not be happy, may have to be done. Or maybe it’s a decision about something behind the scenes that the customer won’t see, but may still may have a negative impact on the customer, maybe even worse than the customer’s concern over a price increase. But these decisions are always made with the customer in mind, even if we know they are not going to be positively received by the customer.

Customer centricity shouldn’t be a concept that is just bantered around. It should be woven into the very fiber of the organization’s culture. Every employee must be a part of this culture that permeates throughout the organization. The best companies do this. So, if you haven’t already done so, make the decision for your organization to be customer-focused. It will positively impact your customers, your employees and your bottom line.

Shep Hyken is a customer service expert, keynote speaker and New York Times bestselling business author. For information contact or www.hyken.com. For information on The Customer Focus™ customer service training programs go to www.thecustomerfocus.com. Follow on Twitter: @Hyken

(Copyright © MMXVII, Shep Hyken)

Save

Save

Save

Save

The post Sometimes Doing What’s Best for Customers Isn’t Always Going to Make Them Happy appeared first on Shep Hyken.

Amazing Business Radio: Lynn Hunsaker

Lynn Hunsaker on How to Retain Customers

So You Don’t Have to Attain Them

What thinking goes into creating an amazing customer experience?

Shep Hyken speaks with Lynn Hunsaker, who talks about a mistake that companies typically make in this process.

First Up:

Shep’s opening monologue takes a look at two companies that truly understand the customer experience. First is Olark, a live chat software company, that chose not to hire a person dedicated to handling customer service. Instead they rotated the job among the four partners. This allowed each of the founders to not only learn how to answer questions and deal with problems, but to also find out what customers were actually experiencing when they used their products. At the second company, Anheuser-Busch, in what could be an early version of Undercover Boss, executives were required to ride with the route salesmen in their beer trucks. As a result, these executives received first-hand knowledge of the customer experience.

Top Takeaways:

Everyone should have a role in making suggestions for improving the customer experience.
Understand your customers’ expectations.
Engage your customers’ trust to create loyalty.

Featured Interview:

Shep interviews Lynn Hunsaker who says that in Silicon Valley the danger exists to think that a concept like innovation can take precedence. Many companies in her area think, “What is the next new mouse trap that we can create?” The concept of attempting to retain existing customers rather that to attain new ones seems a bit foreign to them. So Lynn wrote the book Innovating Superior Customer Experience, to find a common ground with her peers in Silicon Valley.

She discovered that everybody in the organization should have a role in being creative and in making suggestions for customer experience innovations. In Silicon Valley, Adobe gives us an example of such a company. Anybody at Adobe can make a suggestion, have it presented to a peer review board, and fast track their ideas into reality. Everybody at Adobe can have a stake in setting the customer experience.

Lynn says we need to adopt a Blue Ocean strategy. In other words, view your business from the holistic standpoint of your customer. It’s important in this case to determine your customer’s ultimate aim and to characterize their expectations across their entire customer journey. The set of expectations the customer has should become the guiding light for everything you are doing in your company.

Many companies, to help them manage their customer experience, create customer personas. For example, to help their employees better understand the typical customer, Best Buy has created the persona of “Jill,” a soccer mom who makes the electronics purchasing decisions for the family. Some companies actually create and need to manage 12 to 20 of these customer personas.

Lynn tells us there is a much simpler and easier process: just look at the ultimate aims and sets of expectations across those many customer personas. Once you truly understand your customers, through the use of personas or otherwise, you are better able to market to them. Customer service and customer experience are the new marketing. And when you understand who your competitors are, not just your direct competitors, you can begin to craft a better experience for your customers.

When you examine the customer experience, realize that the time and effort customers expend as well as the stress they experience is a huge part of why customers churn. When you are thinking of customer experience improvement, you should be aiming to minimize the occurrence of these issues. We ask ourselves, how do we engage our employees to make the customer’s plight better? For example, how can we simplify something for a customer?

When you are thinking about engaging customers, think first about earning their trust. If you focus on earning their trust, they will engage. But if you focus on engaging them just for the sake of engagement, that effect might be short-lived. Take for example, loyalty programs. In addition to your own loyalty program, your customers may also be subscribers in all of your competitors’ loyalty programs, thus defeating the purpose of your program.

Many loyalty programs are simply marketing programs. Ask yourself, would a customer still do business with you if you eliminated your loyalty program? Have we been able to earn their trust? That is how good you need to be! And if you have a loyalty program, use it to thank the people who continue to do business with you. Certainly do not offer even better deals to first-time buyers. Otherwise you will certainly offend your loyal customers!

ABOUT: Lynn Hunsaker is CEO of ClearAction, a customer experience consultancy that grows businesses by centering on customers’ well-being. She is also the author of Innovating Superior Customer Experience, a CXPA Customer Experience Expert, AMA Professional Certified Marketer, ASQ Certified Quality Manager, Certified CPI and MBTI Practitioner, past-president of Bay Area Association for Psychological Type, and award-winning past president of Silicon Valley American Marketing Association.

“When you are customer-centered, it means that you have a personal conviction that if you put your customers first, all of your needs will be met in turn.” – Lynn Hunsaker

      

 What questions will this episode answer?

What is a customer persona?
What is customer-centered management?
What causes customer churn?
What can be wrong with customer loyalty programs?

Save

Save

Save

The post Amazing Business Radio: Lynn Hunsaker appeared first on Shep Hyken.

5 Top Customer Service Articles For the Week of February 13, 2017

Each week I read a number of customer service articles from various online resources. Here are my top five picks from last week. I have added my comment about each article and would like to hear what you think too.

The Customer is Always Right by Richard Shapiro

(TCFCR) “The customer is always right” is a mantra urging service staff to give high priority to customer satisfaction.  The slogan was popularized by pioneer successful retailers like Harry Gordon Selfridge, John Wanamaker and Marshall Field. They thought that customer complaints should be treated seriously so customers did not feel cheated or deceived.

My Comment: Is the customer really right? Is it just a cliché? Turns out that most of the time the customer is right. However, many companies create systems and policies for the very few that aren’t right, penalizing the honest and “right” customers. This article has an interesting take on that old saying that we’ve all known for years. By the way, my take on this is that the customer is NOT always right, but they are ALWAYS the customer. So, if they are wrong, let them be wrong with respect.

Top 10 Customer Service Trends for 2017 [Whitepaper] b y Daniela Puzzo 

(Fonolo) This whitepaper examines 10 customer service trends that will dramatically affect the success of your support team in 2017.

My Comment: I love a good list of trends. Here are five of ten trends in customer service we all need to pay attention to. And, to get the other five you’ll have to download the full report. Well worth it! By the way, my favorite of the first five is number four, which is to create a personalized service experience. This concept is one of the most important concepts today.

3 Critical Questions Customer Success Executives Need to Answer by Bob Hayes

(Appuri) Customer Success is the function in a company that manages the relationship it has with its customers to ensure the customers receive value from the product or solution. Customer Success is about making customers as profitable and productive as possible.

My Comment: The concept of “Customer Success” has become a popular concept, and is becoming a competitive differentiator. Done well, the customer feels valued and has a higher level of confidence that they made the right choice to do business with the company. This article has a number of concepts to help integrate an effective customer success program.

Here’s how tech can help with consumer loyalty by Adam Croxen

(Tech City News) When you’re a cash-strapped startup, increasing customer loyalty, then, is a no brainer. Luckily, there’s a range of technology that can be used to improve customer experience and increase loyalty.

My Comment: Customer loyalty programs have come a long way. A customer no longer has to carry a card that is punched or handed to the salesperson to get their rewards points. Technology has made loyalty programs more effective and easier on both the customer and the company. I especially appreciate the final comment which takes the focus off of the loyalty program and emphasizes the importance of an overall great customer experience.

Where Do Human Emotions Fit in the Customer Experience? by Vitaliy Verbenko

(CustomerThink) Just like people, few are liked or trusted. And among those, even fewer are able to transcend emotional barriers. So just like successful people – successful brands are able to capitalize on different customer motivators and cater directly to them.


My Comment: You can’t have customer loyalty without some type of emotional connection. After all, loyalty is an emotion. This article focuses on how an emotional connection with a customer is an important step toward loyalty. This is backed up by a Harvard Business review article that reveals that emotionally connected customers are 25-100% more valuable than just highly satisfied customers. A good – and important – lesson for all of us.

Shep Hyken is a customer service expert, professional speaker and New York Times bestselling business author. For information contact or www.hyken.com . For information on The Customer Focus™ customer service training programs go to www.thecustomerfocus.com . Follow on Twitter: @Hyken

Save

Save

Save

The post 5 Top Customer Service Articles For the Week of February 13, 2017 appeared first on Shep Hyken.

Guest Blog: A Hidden Service Blocker – Unconscious Bias

This week on our Friends on Friday guest blog post my colleague, George Aveling, shares an experience he had demonstrating unconscious bias during the customer experience. This is very true, unfortunately and a story we can all learn from. – Shep Hyken

This article is about something that affects the quality of service delivery.

It is evident in many companies.

It’s rarely spoken about.But it can have really negative consequences.

It’s called unconscious bias.

Let me explain.

I was on a flight.

The plane was full.

As to be expected in this global world, there were people of different races on the plane – Caucasian, Asian, Middle Eastern and African.

I sat next to a person of African descent who, from a young age, had been living in Sweden. His name was Robert.

We had a few initial polite words, and then quickly developed a rapport.

We had a chat during the course of the flight. We got to know each other. We spoke about family, what we did, and our views on life. His passion is music, and he explained how he wanted to make a career in this industry. My conversation with Robert helped make the flight go faster.

But then something happened that bothered me.

The member of the cabin crew who served our meals behaved in a way that I am sure she was not aware of.

There were subtle differences in her manner towards me and towards Robert. She was friendly to me. She smiled, both with her mouth and with her eyes.

But, within the space of just a few seconds, her demeanor towards Robert, the person sitting next to me, was different.

Her tone and manner towards Robert were serious. Gone was the friendly person that I had experienced just a few seconds ago. It was almost stern.

I felt bad for Robert. But I didn’t talk to him about it. I am pretty sure that this was a part of the world that he lived in.

This was a case of what is called “unconscious bias”.

The cabin crew member was unaware of the difference in her behavior towards Robert and me. She had automatically made a judgement about Robert.

Our unconscious biases are influenced by factors including our past experience and background. They are triggered by differences between other people and ourselves, such as color of skin, race, accent, physical appearance, social status, religion of other people.

The cabin crew member’s unconscious bias led to Robert and me having totally different service experiences.

There was an experiment that is shown on YouTube. Two scenes in a busy public place, with lots of people passing by.

Scene 1: The actor is lying on the pavement, seemingly in distress, continually saying, “Help me, help me.” Nobody came to help him.

Scene 2: The same actor is dressed in business clothing, seemingly in distress, saying, “Help me, help me.” People immediately flocked around to help him.

So, what has this got to do with the wider world of the customer experience?

Everything.

Service staff around the world everyday instinctively behave differently towards different types of customers. This can be reflected in terms of the human experience that they deliver. Or it might be felt through their willingness to help, to make approvals, accept complaints… and the list goes on.

Unconscious bias in customer service can cost companies money.

I was running a customer service workshop in Australia some years ago. A very well educated and senior public sector employee told me a story. She is part-Aboriginal. She went into a car dealership willing and ready to buy a Honda Accord. It took a long time for someone to come to assist her – and when someone did, it was a junior person. She said to me, “They ignored me. They thought that an Aboriginal woman like me could not afford to buy a Honda Accord.”

She went to another car dealership where she had a better service experience. She was treated with respect, just as any customer would expect. She bought the car. And, she decided that she would not get mad with the first dealership. She sent that car dealership a cancelled checkc, made out for the amount of the new Honda Accord. It came with a note, saying, “This is what your company missed out on…”

The message is simple – unconscious bias in service delivery comes naturally and spontaneously. It can cost companies a lot of money in lost sales, as well as resulting negative impacts on brand reputation. Emotional and negative social media stories have a habit of going viral!

The customer in front of me has feelings – just like me. She has a family – just like me. She wants to be valued – just like me. She wants to be treated with respect – just like me.

As service leaders, we need to make customer service employees aware of their potential unconscious biases. Develop a way of thinking of “just like me”, where service employees focus on the similarities between customers and themselves, rather than the differences.

George Aveling  is the  CEO and International Partner of TMI and TACK International Malaysia. Both companies are leading global consulting and training organizations with offices in more than 60 countries worldwide.

For more articles from Shep Hyken and his guest contributors go to customerserviceblog.com.

Read Shep’s latest Forbes Article: 1-800-Flowers Has A Firmly Rooted Culture Of Customer Service

Save

The post Guest Blog: A Hidden Service Blocker – Unconscious Bias appeared first on Shep Hyken.