Shep Hyken's Blog, page 217
December 17, 2014
Your Very Best Customer Service Experience
What is the very best customer service experience you ever had? Where was it? What did you like about it? What made it stand out? What made it memorable? And the most important question, is it possible for you to duplicate that experience in your own business?
Your experience may or may not have come from someone in your industry. It doesn’t matter. It’s even better if it comes from outside your industry. You can learn from it and duplicate, at least in concept, the most important parts of the experience.
That said, typically the first place someone will go to when looking outside of their own company to create a better customer service experience is their competition. What does the competition do that we don’t? That’s not a bad idea, but the mistake in doing so is that most companies try to copy their competition. In essence, you end up playing keep-up, or even worse, catch-up. Your competition may provide you with some ideas, but they are not the ones to duplicate. Instead, look for ways to modify what you learn from them. Don’t copy them. Instead, adapt and put your personal spin to it.
However, other companies outside of your industry may be an even better place to find a good customer service example. And, unlike your competition, the ideas you get from them may be worth duplicating. Think of that restaurant you were just at. What about the hotel that included some nice amenities? Or the delivery company that picked up and delivered on time, if not even a little early. Or the project that ended on time and under budget. All of these examples have something anybody or any company can learn from and emulate.
Just last year I wrote Amaze Every Customer Every Time. In that book I chose a role model, Ace Hardware, to use as an example that everyone can learn from. There are 52 tactics and strategies to help a company – any type of company – provide an amazing customer experience. I know that most people who have read this book are not in the retail hardware business, but that doesn’t mean they can’t learn from one of the best customer-focused companies on the planet. It doesn’t matter if your business is B2B, B2C, or online. I’ll make an argument that every tool in the book can be applied to any type of business. The point is, most likely Ace Hardware isn’t your competition, but I bet you can take many of their ideas and incorporate them into your customer service strategy.
So, back to the best customer experience you have ever received. What can you learn from it, duplicate, and incorporate into your business?
Shep Hyken is a customer service expert, professional speaker and New York Times bestselling business author. For information contact (314)692-2200 or www.hyken.com . For information on The Customer Focus™ customer service training programs go to http://www.thecustomerfocus.com . Follow on Twitter: @Hyken
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December 15, 2014
5 Top Customer Service Articles For the Week of December 15, 2014
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 Shock Of Good Customer Service by Ann Brenoff
(Huffington Post) I was unprepared for the shocking value of good customer service.
My Comment: The customer wants great service. They love companies like Zappos.com and Nordstrom, and those great companies become the benchmark. When the customer gets that level of service, they are surprised, delighted and sometimes even shocked. It’s a shame that is the case. I love the “case study” that has two great examples; an honest handyman and a window company that honors their lifetime warranty. Great reminder of what customer service should be.
Upside Down and Inside Out will make you Right Side UP! by Abraham Venismach
(Making Excellent Customer Service the Standard) So how do you get to that level of astronomical, out of this world, beyond WOW service? Now notice I mention service and not customer service. That’s right, “Service.”
My Comment: Great article that reminds us that the customer can be anyone, who at any time, depends on us for anything. It can be the traditional customer, someone who pays us for our goods and/or services. It can be an internal customer, a colleague at work, who depends on us to do their job. So far nothing new. But how about a third type of customer; ourselves. Yes, sometimes we even need things ourselves, and it is up to us to make sure we get what we want and need.
New year, new loyalty: Five lessons you might have missed in 2014 by Jenn Reichenbacher
(Retail Customer Experience) Here are five lessons you can take with you into the new year to make sure you’re at the top of customers’ minds from January all the way through December.
My Comment: While I enjoyed reading about all five ideas in this list, one resonated the most; Sales are temporary, but a good loyalty program lasts forever. If a company is transactional in nature, they will make a sale – one interaction where money changes hands for good or services. If that company focuses on the customer and building a relationship, they may have a repeat loyal customer. (And, isn’t that what every company wants?)
What’s Your Brand’s Customer Service Persona? by Adrian Swinscoe
(Forbes) I was really interested to learn that Aspect has just released a new piece of research that aims to do just that: put brands into one of five different customer service persona segments.
My Comment: Interesting article about the different “personalities” or behavioral styles of a company. I agree that the combination of the different personas is best, and the best companies have figured out how to do this. And, just as individual personalities must adapt to the different personalities of their customers and colleagues, companies must do the same. The customer who loves the technology of a self-service option, then all of a sudden needs additional support, should be able to fall back on tradition; picking up the phone and talking to a human being. However sometimes it is the ability to emphasize one style over another, adapting to the customer’s needs, that may create the best experience for customer.
Back to School: Lessons in Customer Service by Kai Petzelt
(The Customer Edge) What do a cup of Coke, Nespresso coffee capsules and the WTF Coffee Lab in Brooklyn, NY have in common? Despite the obvious, ie sharing the same ingredient, caffeine, all three were used as inspiring conversation starters in a recent episode of the SAP Radio Show The Customer Edge.
My Comment: Another great article from my friend Kai Petzelt at SAP. Earlier this year SAP hosted a panel that included executives from Discover, Whole Foods, and myself. Kai has a done an excellent job of summarizing some of the key takeaways from the discussion.
Shep Hyken is a customer service expert, professional speaker and New York Times bestselling business author. For information contact (314)692-2200 or www.hyken.com . For information on The Customer Focus™ customer service training programs go to www.thecustomerfocus.com . Follow on Twitter: @Hyken
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December 12, 2014
Guest Blog: When You Learn to Trust Your Customers, Wonderful Things Can Happen
This week on our Friends on Friday guest blog post, my colleague Adele Halsall talks about the debate over listening to and implementing the customer opinion. She gives some great examples of companies who are doing it right. – Shep Hyken
As customers, we rarely get to witness a large or global company involving consumers in the production process. And yet we’re always hugely impressed by the ones that do.
In a world where the customer has increasing influence and a stronger voice in businesses’ output, it makes sense to involve customers more not just at the feedback stages but during the production process too.
However, few companies are brave enough to carry it out.
Customer Trust in Action
Let’s start by looking at one of the most recognised brands in the world today, known precisely for its involvement with customers: LEGO.
LEGO initially made its name as the creator of the classic, brick-shaped plastic that allowed kids to build endless creations, occupying their imagination for hours on end. However, the company began to lose touch with customers in the early 2000s, resulting in a mournful slide in sales and a drop in customer faith.
Enter LEGO’s grand plan –a public competition to see just what consumers wanted from their brand. The result showed that customers wanted the simple, classic LEGO back; the same one they’d fallen in love with all those years ago. LEGO set about refocusing the design process to give them just this.
Before long, LEGO was producing products that children wanted to play with again. It also resumed its traditional habit of paying attention to trends in popular franchises, buying the franchise rights and recreating it in the form of LEGO (Batman and Transformers, anyone?).
Earlier in 2014, LEGO launched a marketing campaign that gave its UK fans the opportunity to submit their ideas for new LEGO products. Named ‘LEGO Ideas’, the platform is a clear-cut example of a company giving its customers an active voice; not being afraid to let go of a little control, and welcoming risks to get closer to its fans.
Another company that places tremendous trust in its customers’ ability to know best is Amazon, albeit in a different way. Amazon doesn’t wait around for its customers to say what they want, but rather anticipates their desires in advance by paying attention to their shopping activity. It is this shrewd and attentive observation over the years that has led to the seller’s innovative services such as one-click ordering; same-day delivery and ‘recommended items’.
According to its CEO Jeff Bezos, Amazon is not competitor-obsessed but “customer-obsessed” instead. In an interview for Forbes, the tactful leader explained, “We don’t focus on what’s going to be good for the next quarter; we focus on what’s going to be good for customers.”
Indeed, the Kindle tablet was just one example of this, defined primarily by customer desires rather than by budget or engineering preferences. When asked how much he was willing to spend on the product, Bezos’ answer was, “How much do we have?”
But perhaps more important is the fact that Amazon is a highly data-driven company. The seller is able to use the data generated by customer shopping habits to determine how their experience can be made even better. This helps to address the ‘unspoken needs’ of customers that they may not even know they had, and the hard data makes it easier to turn these insights into solid actions.
The Customer: Another Member of Your Team
All types of businesses would do well to remember that the customer is quite literally another member of their team. It’s amazing how many brands claim to ‘put the customer first’; yet so few of them put this mantra into concrete and measurable action.
Jeff Bezos has been known to implement the ‘empty chair’ technique, whereby an empty chair is placed in every business meeting to remind team members of his/her presence. It’s surprising how easily companies can forget about the customer – the one that pays everyone’s wages – when making those important production decisions.
How and When to Implement Customer Opinion
Steve Jobs’ famous quote about the uselessness of the customer’s opinion has gone down in business history as one of the most controversial; however it does bear some relevance.
In Jobs’ view, seeking customer ideas on building a new product is pointless as “a lot of times, people don’t know what they want until you show it to them”.
Indeed, many companies are deterred from putting such a crucial element of control in their customers’ hands because:
Their ideas could be costly to implement
Customers’ ideas could fall out of favour shortly after production, leading to a fall in sales
Their demands may not fit in with a brand’s existing business strategy
The boundaries imposed by demand can limit creativity
Catering to customer trends can hinder a company’s ability to innovate.
Many experts debate whether customer opinion has any value at all when it comes to innovating new products. But whether or not a brand changes its production process as a result is not entirely the point.
Instead, seeking customers’ ideas and responding to behavioural preferences creates a positive bond that is difficult to replicate. By simply being invited to give their input, customers will feel that a brand really cares about what they think and is willing to take their ideas on board. This alone is enough to strengthen the customer relationship.
In the case of LEGO, customers have been able to share their ideas via a controlled platform that has become an opportunity for social engagement in itself. Besides browsing pending projects, people can vote for the ones they’d like to see happen and share their comments.
Amazon, on the other hand, is data-driven. It looks at the behaviour of its customers to conclude their preferences, and uses this evidence as reason to take a leap of faith when introducing new practices.
And the outcome?
It would be hard to argue that either Amazon or LEGO are lacking in positive customer relationships, built on faith and a strong trust that they will deliver what their customers expect them to do. And it’s all because they deigned to trust their customers first.
It can be scary to find a balance between innovation and delivering what your customers expect. But let it be said that when you learn to trust your customers, wonderful things can happen.
Adele Halsall is a writer and researcher for Customer Service Guru. She is passionate about retail and consumer trends, and how this is shaped and governed by advertising and social marketing. She is particularly experienced in marketing and customer engagement, and enjoys contributing to ongoing debates related to best business practices, start-up culture, and the culture of customer relations. Email her at adele@customerserviceguru.co.uk or @gurucustomers
For more articles from Shep Hyken and his guest contributors go to customerserviceblog.com
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December 10, 2014
Friction Kills the Customer Experience
Frictionless BusinessMerriam-Webster’s defines the word friction three ways; the act of rubbing one thing against another; the force that causes a moving object to slow down when it is touching another object; and the disagreement or tension between people or groups of people. If you tie the concept of friction to the concept of customer service, none of these definitions are good.
Looking at it from another angle, the opposite of friction is agreement, peace and harmony. Most of us would agree that we would like a customer experience without friction, one that is easy. Yes, that’s the word; easy. When it comes to business, especially customer service, the antithesis of an experience with friction is one that is easy.
Customers hate friction in business. Unfortunately, it happens to us quite often, sometimes multiple times throughout the day. It’s when we are put on hold, transferred to someone else or when we have to repeat our complaint or problem to numerous customer service reps. It’s being stuck in a long checkout line and dealing with traffic in a crowded parking lot. It’s when we expect an item to be delivered on a certain day, and it doesn’t arrive. It’s the sales rep that is late for a meeting. The long wait at the doctor’s office, even though we were on time for our appointment. It’s the Cable TV guy that never shows up. It’s anything that makes doing business with someone anything other than easy.
So, what’s easy? Amazon.com’s one click purchasing is easy. PayPal is easy. The automobile dealership that picks up my car for service instead of me having to bring it in is easy. Uber, the transportation company that’s giving the traditional taxi industry a run for its money, is “uber-easy.” Once you have an account with Uber you don’t even have to take money out of your pocket to pay the driver – not even a tip. And now, Apple introduced the iPhone 6 that includes Apple Pay, which effectively turns your mobile phone into a credit card. Sometimes you can substitute the word easy for convenient, like a bank that has extended hours so people who work during the day can do their banking on their way home or on Saturday. These are examples of easy, frictionless, ways to do business.
So, where are the friction points in your business? Or put another way, where do you find you are rubbing up against your customer, slowing down progress, or even having a complaint or disagreement? What customers want is the opposite. They want a customer service experience that is easy, which means no hassle, no problems and no friction!
Shep Hyken is a customer service expert, professional speaker and New York Times bestselling business author. For information contact (314)692-2200 or www.hyken.com . For information on The Customer Focus™ customer service training programs go to http://www.thecustomerfocus.com . Follow on Twitter: @Hyken
(Copyright ©MMXIV, Shep Hyken)
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December 8, 2014
5 Top Customer Service Articles For the Week of December 8, 2014
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.
104 Fascinating Social Media and Marketing Statistics for 2014 (and 2015) by Tom Pick
(Webbiquity) 100 social and online marketing stats from 20+ different sources.
My Comment: While I no longer think that social media and social customer service are new ideas, apparently many companies still do. These stats and facts should help make the case for the importance social media can have on a business. I’d be impressed with just a dozen facts, but this post has more than 100!
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42 Experts Reveal Their Top Tips and Strategies on How Organizations Can Improve Customer Retention by NG Data
(NG Data) We asked 42 customer retention experts to answer this question: “What’s the #1 way organizations can improve customer retention?” We’ve collected and compiled their expert advice into this comprehensive guide on expert tips and best strategies for improving customer retention.
My Comment: First, thank you for including me on this list with so many great people. Second, this is a phenomenal list of ideas on how to retain customers and create loyalty. Amazing how many different ways there are to “skin a cat.” Thanks for putting this together.
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15 Strategies for Live Chat Agents by Michal Kouril
(LiveAgent) Good communication with visitors can lead into turning them to customers. Here are top 15 strategies to help you achieve just that.
My Comment: Live Chat is becoming a standard channel for customer support. If chat is part of your support strategy, read this post to learn what I’m calling the “Fifteen Commandments of Chat Support.” (Even better than ten!)
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Business Actions Guaranteed for Losing Customers by Mike Schoultz
(Digital Spark Marketing) Take a look at your business and see if any of these bad experiences may be losing your customers.
My Comment: I love a good list of ideas to help me improve a business. Follow the ideas shared on this list and you will almost guarantee failure! But, that’s exactly what we need to know. These are five (of many ways) companies lose customers. Learning what NOT to do is just as important as learning what to do.
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Personalized Interaction – the Third “I” of Service Excellence by Hansen Lieu
(LinkedIn) If you are reading this post, then you’ll probably agree that excellence in customer service is of paramount importance to your organization’s success in the market.
My Comment: The interaction between a company’s employees and the customer is where the “rubber meets the road.” People don’t just do business with a company or store. They do business with the people who work in that company or store. We must always manage the interaction for a positive experience. When every interaction is above average – even just a tiny bit above average – and it is consistent and predictable, then you have most likely met, if not exceeded your customers’ expectations.
Shep Hyken is a customer service expert, professional speaker and New York Times bestselling business author. For information contact (314)692-2200 or www.hyken.com . For information on The Customer Focus™ customer service training programs go to www.thecustomerfocus.com . Follow on Twitter: @Hyken
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December 5, 2014
Guest Blog: The Power of One
This week on our Friends on Friday guest blog post, my colleague Doug Sandler shares a terrific story illustrating how the power of one person can influence the customer experience. – Shep Hyken
I had an opportunity recently to speak to a group of associates at the Ritz Carlton about customer service and the importance and impact of just one single action made by just one human being. As a side note, employees at the Ritz Carlton are empowered to make decisions without checking with management if the associate feels as though the decision made will positively impact a guest’s stay. I’m not just referring to front desk or concierge staff. I’m talking about everyone on staff including housekeeping, valet, engineering and dishwashers too.
On this particular day, I had a program the night before 2 hours north of the Ritz I was visiting in Virginia. Since that program was ending late and morning traffic in the DC suburb I was visiting is notorious for ugly morning rush hour traffic I decided to make the 2 hour journey to the Ritz at 11pm, arriving around 1am. As a part of my travel preparation, I called the Ritz and told them I would be arriving late and would need an early wake up call for their 7:30am program start time (the hospitality world gets up way too early). I arrived at the hotel, checked into my room and upon entering the room, noticed there were chocolates on the dresser, a handwritten welcome note thanking me for coming late night to their hotel and a steaming cup of warm tea. It looked like the tea had literally been poured just seconds before I entered the room.
Since I am in the business of customer service, I snapped a quick picture of the tea, note and chocolates, posted a positive comment on my Facebook and Twitter pages and quickly fell asleep until the ringing of my 6:30am wake up alarm. Not having time in the morning to check my social media feeds, I glanced at them just seconds before the general manager of the hotel introduced me. I was astounded to discover I had over 18,000 views of the tea, note and chocolate picture I posted, leading me to change the entire subject matter of what I was going to talk about with the Ritz associates. While exemplary service (the original topic I was going to discuss) is essential and key in growing business, I instead, spent the next 30 minutes talking about the power of one. The one staff member who thought enough of me to think that I would be tired and weary from the long previous day’s drive and could use a warm cup of tea before going to bed. The solo act of leaving a welcome note and a handful of amazing chocolates on the dresser. These kind acts are what caused me to take the picture, post the image and promote the Ritz Carlton to nearly twenty thousand people. Free advertising.
I was wowed, amazed and impressed with the level of service I received from that one act and although the Ritz is a wonderful place to stay even without the chocolates, I can assure you I was over-the-top impressed by the act of just one associate who took it upon himself to make me feel comfortable.
What are those wow moments that you create for your customers? How can you create an experience that your customer will want to go out of their way to promote your business? What actions can you take so your customer will only think of your company the next time they want to buy? Never underestimate the power of one. That one is YOU!
Doug Sandler, aka Mr. Nice Guy, created Nice Guys Finish First in an environment where too often people accept average as the norm when it comes to customer service; and way too often companies accept average from their sales and customer service departments. Doug is a speaker, author and blogger specializing in exceeding service expectations and he can prove to you why nice guys (and girls) finish first. You can get a free download of his e-book “5 Biggest Mistakes Made By Sales and Customer Service,” by clicking here.
For more articles from Shep Hyken and his guest contributors go to customerserviceblog.com.
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December 3, 2014
Appreciation Gifts: The Pre-Experience
The Customer ExperienceIn almost every one of my speeches I talk about the value of showing appreciation. It can be in the form of a thank you note, an email, a phone call – even a text. It’s simply letting someone else know you appreciate them.
Taking it a step further, I included it as one of the seven strategies in my book The Amazement Revolution. Specifically I called it the after-experience, which was all about creating some type of after-experience that is unexpected, appreciated and memorable. It could be a simple thank you, but typically it is something more tangible, although not necessarily expensive. The idea is to create a positive callback to the business you had with a customer.
With the holidays looming just ahead I thought this would be a perfect time to talk about appreciation gifts. Then I had a great dinner with my good friend John Ruhlin who is the ultimate king of appreciation gifts. We talked about my concept of the after-experience, and he had some thoughts worth sharing.
He said that so many people focus on showing appreciation after the sale or meeting. Why not do it before? Rather than an after-experience, make it a pre-experience. No one is expecting to get a gift before. The element of surprise is completely on your side.
For example, one of John’s major gift lines is Cutco Knives, beautiful high-quality kitchen knives. John shares the story of a client who put together a master-mind of CEO’s to meet to share ideas. Each member of the group is a high-profile business owner or executive. Prior to the first event, John created a custom Cutco chef knife with each member’s and spouse’s names engraved on the blade. This was packaged in a black box with silver writing, which John proudly refers to as his version of the Tiffany blue box. It included a handwritten note from the client that stated: Thanks for “carving out the time and resources” to invest your time and energy. Can’t wait to see you at our first meeting. With gratitude.
The members were blown away and the excitement of the upcoming meeting was raised to an even higher level.
John shared a similar story of a client who was taking customers on a trip. Two weeks ahead of time the clients received a personalized piece of luggage with the message: We’re just two weeks away from our trip, so pack your bags. We’ll see you soon!
The main idea is that the experience begins before the meeting or event takes place. Obviously this won’t work in every situation. For example, if you have a retail store you can’t create a pre-experience for the mall-walking shopper. Even so, the idea of extending the actual experience with interactions that take place before and/or after the main interaction is powerful. Furthermore, John’s comment about gift giving is powerful: It’s more meaningful when you don’t HAVE to do it.
Now regarding the gift itself, while John’s gifts are really, really nice, you don’t always have to spend a lot of money – or any money at all – to create an after-experience or pre-experience. Just make it personal. If you buy someone a book, inscribe it with a personal message. Don’t just give someone a gift certificate to a random restaurant. Make it your customer’s favorite restaurant. The key is to make it meaningful and memorable.
Shep Hyken is a customer service expert, professional speaker and New York Times bestselling business author. For information contact (314)692-2200 or www.hyken.com . For information on The Customer Focus™ customer service training programs go to http://www.thecustomerfocus.com . Follow on Twitter: @Hyken
(Copyright ©MMXIV, Shep Hyken)
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December 1, 2014
5 Top Customer Service Articles For the Week of December 1, 2014
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.
Using Proactive Communication to Deliver an Amazing Customer Experience by Nigel Shanahan
(B2Community) To help, here are nine top tips on how you can keep your customers informed and engaged throughout their journey with you to enhance their Customer Experience.
My Comment: Good communication may be the cornerstone of a good customer service experience. All of the nine ideas in this article are important. Making it easy for customers to communicate with you is the first thing. Then personal communication skills must kick in so customers feel they have a connection with a company; they are being heard and that they can relate to the personnel.
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How Big Data is Improving Your Customer Experience by David Youssefnia
(LinkedIn) These days, companies have a plethora of customer data–CRM systems, loyalty programs, billing/transactional history, location data from smartphones, web surfing/shopping behavior–at their fingertips to help them learn about customer habits, history, and preferences. Some innovative companies are leveraging this information in order to improve the customer experience.
My Comment: It’s easier than ever to get data on your customers for the purpose of enhancing their experience. The key is to know what data to use and how to use it once you have it. Here are several great examples of how a few of our favorite companies are using that data to personalize the experience and create customer loyalty.
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Slippery Customer Service Issues Put Companies on Thin Ice by Jeannie Walters
(360Connext) What happens when we step inside the walls of an organization? We are tasked with totally different goals. We are told to focus on our small piece of the customer puzzle. We are rewarded for profits over people. And we seem to have collective amnesia of what it’s like to be a customer.
My Comment: The point of this article is simple: Take a walk in your customers shoes. Doing so may confirm you are as good as you thought you were, or may show you some pretty big – and even embarrassing – flaws, such as (and this is a perfect example) a power company asking customers without electricity, internet or phone lines to check the website.
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Personality Matters in Customer Service by Shelagh Collins
(CMSWire) Behavioral pairing involves something that resembles match-making — using the content and language of previous calls from clients to determine their basic personality types, then analyzing which types each customer care representative (CCR) communicates best with in order to reduce costs and increase service levels.
My Comment: This is an interesting look at matching behavioral styles of customer service reps to customers and their specific problems, complaints or issues. I’ll go a step further and suggest that every employee of a company know and understand their behavioral style and be trained to recognize others. If we can adapt to someone else’s style in tenuous situations, we can increase the likelihood of a positive resolution.
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10 Simple Tips to Improve Customer Care In Just 1 Day by Flavio Martins
(WintheCustomer!) Customer care is one of the most important aspects of growing a successful business. Here are 10 tips and tools you should utilise to improve customer care.
My Comment: While you might not be able to change a company’s culture to become customer focused in one day, you can make minor tweaks in how people deal with people. These ten tips are great ways to start the process. It will take more than just sharing the tips once. It takes repetition, training, recognition for doing it right and more. That said, here is a good start. I always enjoy sharing common sense ideas that can be implemented immediately.
Shep Hyken is a customer service expert, professional speaker and New York Times bestselling business author. For information contact (314)692-2200 or www.hyken.com . For information on The Customer Focus™ customer service training programs go to www.thecustomerfocus.com . Follow on Twitter: @Hyken
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November 28, 2014
Guest Blog: What makes your product or service different in the eyes of consumers?
This week on our Friends on Friday guest blog post, my colleague Gregory Yankelovich talks about living up to expectations of a customer experience certain companies have created. He shares some very interesting statistics. - Shep Hyken
Customer Experience, shared over social media, is replacing brand equity as a major competitive differentiator.
It is only a matter of time and success rate, before competition will re-engineer the functionality of your new product or service and bring to the market a newer, shinier, and more affordable offering. When that happens your market share growth stumbles and starts to decline, price pressure starts to erode profit margin, and your brand becomes an also-ran instead of a leader. It is a much more complicated undertaking to re-engineer customer experience, but it can happen too if you don’t pay attention to the market landscape. Let me offer a couple examples:
1. Dyson introduced to the market easily maneuverable vacuum cleaners that offered revolutionary design, much more functionality (“appropriate amount of suction”), and panache advertising messaging for a premium price. Its inventor was knighted (Sir James Dyson) and became a celebrity. However, after a few years of Dyson leading their segment of the market and winning patent battles against “wannabe” competitors, Euro-Pro came out with Shark vacuum models that performed as well or better at the lower price than Dyson. As a former customer of Dyson, I cannot re-call anything special about my experience of owning their product.
The best part of it was the experience of being a Bed, Bath and Beyond customer—and that is where I bought my new Shark at the half of the Dyson’s vacuum price.
Now, Hoover and others are coming to market with comparable products that force Dyson to bring lower priced models.
2. A more controversial example involves a “religious” icon – the iPhone. Once a gift of elegance and simplicity, it used to be the gold standard in a product category it arguably created. The committed base of Apple fans, standing in line for days to get their hands on a new model, propelled iPhone consumer expectations for customer experience to previously unseen heights. While iPhone dominated the market for early adopters of technology, mass market participants failed to see an overwhelming difference in experience between iOS and Android products that would justify the price deferential and high expectations. Even the latest flagship model (5S) continues the pattern of disappointment with Customer Support. And while iPhone 5S leads the segment (flagship models) today with social NPS® score 53, it is below HTC One in terms of reliability (19% above average), and below Samsung Galaxy S4 in terms of audio experience, design and video quality (23%, 34% and 15% above average respectively). It is not surprising that iPhone market share is shrinking from quarter to quarter.
”The iPhone’s share of the smartphone market peaked at nearly 24% in the holiday quarter of 2011, according to research firm Gartner. But Apple’s share dropped to 21% the next holiday season, and again to 14% last quarter. Android dominates the market with a 79% share.”
The loss of market share is not caused by Apple’s failure to bring a quality product to the market. It is caused by Apple’s failure to live up to expectations of customer experience it has created.
As functions and features of products become more commoditized, the holistic customer experience of dealing with your brand becomes the real differentiator in the market place. It cannot easily be infringed upon, reverse engineered, or acquired by competitors. And if you embrace customer centricity as a long-term strategy for your brand management, the customers will embrace your brand as the first and only choice for them.
Gregory Yankelovich has been involved with customer centric product management and marketing for over 25 years. He currently serves as Founder and CEO of Amplified Analytics. Their core competency is the extraction of Customer Experience marketing intelligence from social media, using proprietary opinion mining technology.
For more articles from Shep Hyken and his guest contributors go to customerserviceblog.com.
The post Guest Blog: What makes your product or service different in the eyes of consumers? appeared first on Shep Hyken.
November 26, 2014
Social Media Customer Service: Reacting vs. Engaging
Customer EngagementMost companies I work with have the social media customer service thing wrong. They typically monitor social channels like Twitter, Facebook and others and react to the comments, trying to respond and fix customer complaints. If all a company is doing is responding to customer complaints, well that is so… 2012!
Within the past two years or so, companies have figured out how to take social media customer service to a much higher level. No longer do they just react to comments on social channels. They also engage in conversations with their customer communities. They interact and provide valuable information in the process. Reaction is still an important part of social service, but there is much more.
First, let’s look at the concept of reaction. Here are three important points to consider.
Speed counts. Reacting and reaction time is extremely important. If I wanted to have my question answered 2 hours from now, I’d have waited 2 hours to ask the question. Regardless of the social channel reaction time is paramount. Social Bakers had an interesting stat that the average wait time in social media is nine hours. That’s right. Nine hours! The 2014 American Express Global Customer Service Barometer indicates that 25% of consumers who complain on social media expect a response time of less than an hour. The bottom line is: when a customer complains, they want to get an answer now.
Stay on the same social channel. If somebody approaches you via Twitter, try not to move them to Facebook. Sure, you may want to move the customer to a private area, such as Twitter’s direct message forum. There may be times that you might have to move the customer to a phone call or maybe some other channel, but try and keep to the same channel, if possible.
Finish strong. Regardless of how upset a customer may be, start there. See what you can do to solve the problem or answer the question in such a way that the customer would want to say something nice about you via their favorite social channel, once the issue is resolved, thereby turning what may have started out to be potentially negative PR into something extremely positive.
As the social customer service experience transforms into engagement, here are three more ideas to consider:
Consider developing an app. You don’t have to spend a lot of money to get something that will engage and interact with your customers. The app can share new information about products, better ways to use your products and more.
Create a content marketing campaign. This is perhaps one of the strongest social media strategies you can have. The key is to deliver content versus blatant marketing. It’s not about asking for business. It’s about delivering value. Do it right and the business follows.
Use YouTube. Create videos that deliver value with solutions to commonly asked questions. I once bought a ping pong table and had difficulty setting it up. All I had to do was put the model number of the table in the YouTube search box and up came a video that helped me put together the table. It was like the customer service rep was standing over my shoulder telling me exactly what to do. Customer will leave comments under your videos, so be sure to interact with them there as well.
Social media customer service is powerful. It’s more than reacting. Engage and interact and you’ll experience more appreciation and loyalty from your customers.
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