Shep Hyken's Blog, page 231
January 27, 2014
5 Top Customer Service Articles For the Week of January 27, 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.
How Mature Is Your CX? by Derek Lewis
(The Eptica Customer Experience Blog) As companies move beyond the basics of customer service, and consumers demand more, make 2014 the year you move forward with improving your Customer Experience.
My Comment: The four phases that companies go through to achieve a higher level of customer experience in this article are spot on. For those companies that are already good, and just want to get better, think of the first phase (repair) as an opportunity to adjust. Great info!
“I Have a Dream”: The Power of a Vision for your Organization by BruceJones
(Disney Institute) “I have a dream” remain four of the most recognized and powerful words to this day. Why has this phrase stood out for so many years?
My Comment: Following on MLK day, this is a great reminder that a company must have a dream – also known as a vision. But even more important is to make sure all employees know it and are willing to live it. That’s alignment. That’s what the best companies do. They communicate their dream/vision to the point that all employees know it, believe it and deliver it.
If great customer service is your competitive differentiator then you’d better be ready to go above and beyond by Mitchell Osak
(Financial Post) Creating great customer experiences — what leaders like Disney, Zappos and Nordstrom do on a consistent basis — is one of the few areas left for companies to differentiate and generate good margins. Making it happen, however, is easier said than done; fundamentally, it is a people issue. How do you get employees to go beyond the call of duty to regularly exceed customer expectations? By empowering them to develop emotional connections with each customer.
My Comment: The title of this article says it all. You know that customer service is a differentiator. So, are you prepared, ready and able to deliver it? Great article with tips to remind us the basics in delivering a customer service experience that will turn satisfied customers into customer evangelists.
Set your business apart with personalized customer service by Melissa Zavala
(The American Genius) As business people, we continuously need to be reinventing ourselves, refreshing our image, our marketing techniques, and our product in order to address the changing needs of the consumer.
My Comment: One of the strongest customer service strategies/tactics is to make it personal. It can be as simple as using a customer’s name. Even an automated email that confirms a person’s order can help personalize the experience. It’s the personal touch that people remember. Here are some reminders that just about any business can use to personalize their service.
10 Things Customer Service Needs to Know About Customers [INFOGRAPHIC] by Flavio Martins
(WinTheCustomer!) The easiest way to make sure that you deliver exceptional customer service is to know exactly what your customers want.
My Comment: Some companies think they know what their customers want. Others actually know. In this article/infographic you will find some great reminders, ideas and tweaks you can make to enhance your service. And, most of these work for the internal customer too!
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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January 24, 2014
Guest Post: The Big Customer Service Disconnect [Infographic]
This week on our Friends on Friday guest blog post, my colleague Wes Hayden reveals some interesting statistics gathered from a survey conducted by Virtual Hold Technology. Along with some surprising results he shares a great infographic. – Shep Hyken
A Survey conducted by Virtual Hold Technology reveals a startling customer service disconnect: while organizations increasingly say customer service is a top priority, consumers are not seeing improvements even at the most basic levels.
Everyone agrees customer service is important. But just how important is it?
The team at Virtual Hold Technology conducted a survey of 500 people over the age of 18, with an equal age and gender distribution across the respondents. 90% of survey respondents said that a positive customer experience would increase their loyalty. Reminder: retaining loyal customers is much easier than acquiring new ones.
So where does traditional customer service fall short? The results may surprise you:
96% of those surveyed report they have to repeat information (account details, explanation of issue, etc.) to call center agents. Whatever happened to intelligent and contextual call routing?
Customers increasingly demand that businesses be more proactive about customer service. 53.8% of those surveyed do not want to wait on hold or call back if a customer service rep isn’t available right away; in fact, these folks prefer a callback from the company. Despite this, how many companies do you know that offer callback options?
While phone remains the most popular form of support, this preference is gradually shifting to other channels, e.g., social media, mobile. Everybody’s talking about multi-channel support yet as consumers, we know multichannel implementation remains a rarity.
Why is there such a big disconnect between what businesses say about prioritizing customer service and their inability to deliver on even the most fundamental best practices?
Consider the following:
Companies are paying lip service to customer service yet not delivering
Deployments are currently happening but not complete
Companies are making the customer service overhaul too complicated and not focusing on basics like intelligent routing/contextual transfers and cutting down on hold times.
Regardless of the causes, if companies don’t take immediate action to eradicate the disconnect, they risk causing significant and potentially irrevocable damage to the most valuable asset they have — their customers.
Wes Hayden is the CEO of Virtual Hold Technology. VHT’s Conversation Bridge is a simple solution with huge impact that provides customers a consistent experience no matter how they try to contact you. Follow Wes on Twitter @WesHayden. For more articles from Shep Hyken and his guest contributors go to customerserviceblog.com
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January 22, 2014
Five Ways to Lose Your Customers
Bad Customer ServiceWant to lose your customer? Deliver a bad customer service experience. And it doesn’t really have to be that bad. Sure, if it’s flat out abysmally terrible customer service you’ll most likely lose the customer, but sometimes it’s much less obvious. It can be an attitude of indifference. So, let’s get specific. Here are five ways that are guaranteed to make your customers question if they made a good decision to do business with you.
Don’t acknowledge the customer. Ever walk into a store and see employees standing around. They are paying attention to everyone except for you, the customer. I remember checking into a hotel years ago. I walked up to the front desk with a heavy suitcase in tow, and the clerk was typing away on his computer. After about 30 seconds, which by the way seemed like much longer, the clerk looked up at me and said, “I’ll be right with you.” About a minute or so later he looked up at me and asked, “Are you here to check in?” I was nice, but I wanted to say, “What do you think?”
Don’t care about the customer. There’s an expression that is attributed to John Maxwell that says, “People don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care.” If there is one important part of customer service, it is that you care – and the customer knows it. Apathy kills the relationship and true caring and concern for the customer trumps all.
Don’t listen to the customer. Customers want to be heard, and equally as important, understood. It’s one thing to make an error on an invoice. It may irritate the customer a bit to have to call and spend time getting it resolved. But if you have a problem that is due to a breakdown in communication, well that is the worst Moment of Misery you can have with your customer. The customer will say, “I don’t like doing business with them. They just don’t listen and understand me.”
Don’t respond to the customer. It is so frustrating to leave a message on the phone, send an email or a Tweet, and get no response. A bad customer service situation gets worse when the company doesn’t respond to the complaint or problem.
Don’t appreciate the customer. A fundamental need of most, if not all people is to feel appreciated. Customers want to be appreciated for spending their hard-earned money at your place of business. So say, “Thank you!” Send a thank you note or an email. Let your customers know you appreciate them.
So, now I’ve given you five. How about sharing what you would add to this list.
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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January 20, 2014
5 Top Customer Service Articles For the Week of January 20, 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.
Employees Who Feel Love Perform Better by Sigal Barsade and Olivia (Mandy) O’Neill
(Harvard Business Review) “Love” is a not word you often hear uttered in office hallways or conference rooms. And yet, it has a strong influence on workplace outcomes. The more love co-workers feel at work, the more engaged they are.
My Comment: Many articles and books have been written about creating an engaged workforce. Just about all of them stay away from the L word: LOVE. However, fulfilled employees typically “love” their company, their boss, their job, etc. Get employees to feel the love and your customers will as well.
Customer Experience Secrets Of Brick-And-Mortar Superstars By Jim Roddy
(Integrated Solutions for Retailers) “If you’re in the brick-and-mortar business,” said shopping center developer Rick Caruso, “you need to be in the hospitality business. Consider the human needs you meet every day.”
My Comment: It doesn’t matter if you are in a retail business (or not), the big “secret” in this article applies to just about any business. The secret word is… hospitality. If you are in a business to serve customers, you are in the hospitality business.
The importance of a great customer service experience: Statistics & trends [infographic] by Invesp Blog
(Alltop) When the life of a company depends on the goodwill of its customers, the importance of a positive customer service experience can’t be emphasized enough.
My Comment: Every once in a while it is important to remember the impact good and bad customer service has on a business. This infographic has many stats and facts worth considering. Depending on which surveys you read, and in which industries they come from, the numbers may differ – but the concepts are still valid. This is some excellent information.
Richard Branson on Growing Your Business by Building a Community by Richard Branson
(Entrepreneur) When you’re launching a startup, one of your first tasks is to identify potential customers and learn about their needs.
My Comment: Richard Branson is one of my favorite business people. I love his way of thinking. One of his core values is to give back to the community. While he truly gives back, he also reaps the benefits of the “Law of Reciprocity;” The more you give, the more you get. While I think that Sir Richard’s community focused mindset is more altruistic than that, you can’t avoid the benefit of helping others. It just happens. We should all pay attention to how Richard Branson runs his empire. More than a rock star, he is a role model.
Running a Business: Customer Service Is Key by Allie Lewis
(Tailwind) Customer service is necessary, but it doesn’t need to be hard. Here are simple things that you can do to improve your customer service.
My Comment: I love articles that are quick to read and have advice that is direct and simple. The four ideas in this article are things we already know and hopefully do. If not, they are a reminder. My spin on the fourth idea, which is to “go above and beyond,” is that above and beyond is easy to attain, if you think of it in terms of just being a little better than average – all of the time. True “above and beyond” moments are opportunities that pop up along the way; hero moments, if you will, when something goes wrong. The best companies that are “above and beyond,” if you look at them closely, are simply better than average all of the time. Thinking of it like that puts “above and beyond” within the grasp of just about everyone and every organization.
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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January 17, 2014
Guest Blog: Are Your Customers Telling a Beloved Company Story?
This week on our Friends on Friday guest blog post, my colleague and friend Jeanne Bliss writes about beloved companies. She shares how a company can become beloved and how it influences the customer.– Shep Hyken
Beloved companies blend commerce with their humanity, they blend their personal lives with their business lives, and they make decisions that are congruent with honoring the person on the other end of the business transaction.
Beloved companies know they are defined in the fleeting moments of customer interaction. (These are moments of truth for the beloved company.)
Beloved Companies Know:
Actions that come from their decisions indicate what the company values.
Actions show how much the company considered the customer.
Actions reflect back on the company — giving customers a glimpse of who they are as people.
Customer love is a reward for (what some consider) irrational business behavior. Companies who grow because of their bonds with customers do so because they aren’t always looking over their shoulders at what each decision will get them. In a world where products and services are available in a hundred variations, beloved companies get a disproportionate piece of the pie because of how they treat their customers.
Studying the decisions made by beloved companies can give you a view of the inner workings that enable a company to become beloved. For beloved companies, making decisions that drive customer loyalty is how they enable moments of “Wow!” in a world of customer-experience “vanilla.”
Decision 1: Beloved Companies Decide to Believe “We trust our customers. We trust those who serve them.”
Decision 2: Beloved Companies Decide with Clarity of Purpose “Our iron-clad integrity and clarity guides the direction of our decisions.”
Decision 3: Beloved Companies Decide to Be Real “We have a spirited soul, humanity in our touch, and personality that’s all ours.”
Decision 4: Beloved Companies Decide to Be There “We must earn the right to our continued relationship with customers.”
Decision 5: Beloved Companies Decide to Say Sorry “We act with humility when things go wrong. We will make it right.”
Take Action to Become a Beloved Company in 2014:
What story is emerging about who you are and what you value?
Are your decisions reflecting what you intended?
Do they indicate to employees and customers how much you honor them?
When you make decisions that respect and honor customers you will earn their respect—eventually their love.
Are your decisions compelling customers to tell others to try your products and services?
Are your customers telling a beloved company story?
Jeanne Bliss is the President of CustomerBliss and co-founder of Customer Experience Professionals Association. Jeanne is a customer loyalty speaker and business author. Follow Jeanne on Twitter at @JeanneBliss. For more articles from Shep Hyken and his guest contributors go to customerserviceblog.com
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January 15, 2014
Customer Service Strategy: To Serve and Protect
Customer LoyaltyI’ve been writing customer service articles for over 25 years and always appreciate comments and stories that come from our readers. Jacques De Villiers responded to one of the articles, which was about shifting your vocabulary. The concept was if we called our customers something other than customers, how could that change the mood, feeling and even the culture of the company? For example, an Ace Hardware store started calling their customers “neighbors.” That one word change in their vocabulary positively impacted the culture. While a simple change of words may not have dramatic impact to a company’s culture, it can at least contribute to what the company is trying to achieve. There is a reason that Disney calls their customers guests. Or a gym might call their customers members. It changes the way you think about the customer.
So, back to the comment that Jacques sent. First, he wrote that he refers to his customers as clients. That’s nothing new. When I think of the word client, I think of someone who does business with a law firm, accounting practice – some type of professional services business. Well, the Merriam-Webster dictionary definition of the word client confirms that and more. One of the definitions is “a customer in a shop or hotel.” So, a customer, in the traditional sense, can be a client, and thinking of them as such may bring a different meaning or feeling about how you refer to and treat your customers. But, Jacques said there was something even more interesting and worth considering. The full definition included the following:
“One that is under the protection of another.”
Now, that’s a twist on the concept of client. What does that mean in terms of customer service? Here are a couple of examples.
To protect our client – or customer – we always put their interests first. It might mean selling them what they need, versus what they think they want, even if it is less money. You find that out the old fashion way, by communicating with them and asking the right questions.
It might mean making suggestions to buy additional products or services. Some would call this upselling, but if it is about making sure the customer – or client – has the best experience it’s the right thing to do. For example, if the customer is buying a can of paint, it makes total sense to make sure they walk out with a paint brush if needed.
It’s our job to serve and protect our customers from making bad decisions. The payoff is that we earn more trust and confidence from our customers, which over time converts to coveted customer loyalty.
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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January 13, 2014
5 Top Customer Service Articles For the Week of January 13, 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.
Creating An Intentional Culture That Engages Employees by Barbara Porter
(Forbes) As the empowered consumer comes of age, companies are focusing more effort on improving the customer experience. Yet despite this, recent studies show that customers remain unhappy with the majority of services provided.
My Comment: Before you can expect to have a customer-focused culture, you must first focus on your employees. As Barbara Porter from Ernst & Young points out, the development of the employee-focused culture must be intentional. Beyond defining it, it must be measured, just as you might measure customer satisfaction and other important metrics to your business.
Let Customers Have it Their Way by Sonny Singh
(Bank Systems & Technology) Following the lead of successful retailers should be the goal for financial services customer experience.
My Comment: Any customer of any business (retail, banks, B-2-B and B-2-C) has the right to “have it their way.” I remember the Burger King commercial from years ago. “Hold the pickles. Hold the lettuce. Special orders don’t upset us…” It was their “Have It Your Way” campaign. Every company should have a similar campaign.
Retail trends in customer experience for 2014 by Dr. Gary Edwards
(Retail Customer Experience) The feedback of individual customers is important. But for today’s retail brands, successful customer experiences aren’t limited to reacting to the comments and complaints of individual shoppers — they are about the aggregation of feedback from many different sources into actionable insights that target multiple dimensions of the customer experience. With that in mind, there are at least four trends that will help shape the retail customer experience in 2014.
My Comment: Even though this article focuses on retail, the trends cross over into the B-2-B world. Using Big Data, omni-channel feedback and more can be used by any business in any industry. It seems that customer experience is becoming an initiative for many companies. The key is that they don’t just talk about it. They do something about it.
7 Steps to Map and Drive the Customer Experience by David Clark
(Target Marketing) In this new world, where the customer is in control, brands must continuously enhance, optimize, enable and support the customer journey through an effective CXM strategy. The reality is the customer experience cannot be managed; it can only be enabled and enhanced because the “C” in CXM is now in control. That being said, there are sound CXM practices that brands can utilize to acquire, serve, retain and drive commitment from their customers. The following seven steps offer a framework for marketers before, during and after activities.
My Comment: This great article has several ideas worth considering. First and foremost, every company, if they haven’t done so, should do a customer journey map. I also like the idea of looking at what other companies (even competitors) are doing as “best practices.” If it is a competitor from your own industry, don’t copy. Adopt and give it a different spin to make it your own. Copying is just keeping up. That said, bringing in best practices from other industries (that your customers might appreciate) can give you a competitive advantage.
3 Key Benefits of Live Chat for Customer Service by Gianluca Ferranti
(Vivocha) Now, more than ever, businesses need to fully support the online customer experience and provide them with quality online support. In addition to phone, email, self-service, and video customer support channels, live chat is a great tool for online customer support that can lead to happier customers, increased conversions, and a reduction in service costs. But should your business use live chat for support? Here are three benefits to consider.
My Comment: While not all of us need “Live Chat” to support our customers, this article has some interesting stats and facts that every business needs to know regarding how customers are using online communication channels.
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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January 10, 2014
Guest Blog: Five Customer Service Myths Busted
This week on our Friends on Friday guest blog post, my colleague Nick Toman shares research about those pursuing the ideal customer experience and information that is being overlooked during the process. He shares five service myths related to the ideal customer experience that is food for thought! – Shep Hyken
Recently Bloomberg BusinessWeek released a report claiming that it pays to be a hated company. They found that customer satisfaction levels are inversely related to company stock price performance. The Colbert Report’s coverage of this story helped propel the world of customer service to the national forefront over the past few days.
While some leading experts in the customer service space have been quick to highlight flaws in Bloomberg BusinessWeek’s analysis*, for others this comes as little surprise. The relationship between customer satisfaction and commercial outcomes has long been known to have little correlation.
Based on years of research in the customer service and support space, much of which is detailed in our latest book, The Effortless Experience (Penguin/Portfolio), Bloomberg BusinessWeek’s findings don’t come as a huge surprise. We’ve analyzed over 125,000 unique service interactions and over 5,000 frontline service reps and have come to understand that companies in pursuit of the ideal customer experience are often overlooking far more meaningful drivers of the customer experience in the process – the very elements that materially impact customer loyalty and drive commercial performance.
In no particular order, here are the top five service myths related to the ideal customer experience…
Myth #1: Delighting customers in service interactions drives loyalty.
Reality: Simply meeting baseline customer expectations in service interactions drives the same loyalty benefit as exceeding expectations.
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Our data shows very clearly that delighting customers, while it may feel like the “right answer” does not lead to commensurate loyalty. In many cases, those grateful letters that customers send detailing how they were delighted are followed by no further advocacy, no incremental spend, and in many instances a phone call to cancel their service or return their product. The next myth details why this is the case…
Myth #2: Customer service positively impacts customer loyalty.
Reality: Customer service largely drives disloyalty.
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Most leaders think of customer as a single “pie.” The reality is that loyalty really behaves like two separate pies – one for positive gains in loyalty, and the other is disloyalty. The positive pie is driven by things like the brand, product quality, and value. The negative pie, however, is dominated by customer service. The reason is that service engages customers who are already in a sub-optimal state of mind. At the least, they have a question. More commonly, they have a concern or an issue. The primary goal of customer service is to mitigate disloyalty, not drive positive gains in customer loyalty. For those who are sports fans, the best analogy here is that customer service is best positioned to play defense, not offense.
Myth #3: Customers want to be showered with discounts, givebacks, and WOW moments.
Reality: Customers want ease. Getting back to their busy lives quickly matters more than anything.
The greatest driver of disloyalty is the amount of effort you require your customers to put into their service experience. Customer effort includes repeat contacts, repeating information, channel switching (e.g. starting in Web and ending up on the phone), transfers, policies and procedures, and the general hassle factor that most service interactions create.
Simply stated, reducing customer effort is the most important thing your company can do to better serve customers.
Myth #4: Your customers want to talk to you.
Reality: Your customers would much rather self-serve.
Most companies manage their service operations to the preferences of a 77-year old customer. That’s the age where customers prefer the phone 2.5x more than self-service, which is the ratio that most executives believe customers prefer to interact with their company. But consider that nearly 60% of all phone interactions saw the customer start on the company’s website. Companies are forcing customers to switch from self-service to phone – and creating significant customer effort along the way. The trick isn’t getting customers to try to self-serve, it’s getting them to stay in those channels. It’s what customers want, and what our CFOs want, so why aren’t we focused there?
Myth #5: Customers will be satisfied by having many choices in how they interact with a company.
Reality: Customers want to be guided to the simplest, easiest resolution possible.
Only 16% of customers are steadfast in their service channel preferences (the majority of who view the phone as the ONLY option for their service needs). The remaining 84% of customers prefer guided resolution, where a company essentially recommends the best way to resolve an issue. Herein lays the problem however… Most service websites have between 25 and 45 initial choices for a customer to make when trying to resolve an issue – each choice equally right or wrong. The lowest effort websites aren’t the ones trying to “keep up with the Joneses” and instead focus on simplicity and clarity. Amazon.com epitomizes guided resolution, where customers select their issue in a series of 3 drop down menus and are then prompted as to the best channel to interact with Amazon. What’s more amazing, is when phone is recommended, the customer is asked to input their phone number and a rep from Amazon calls and immediately starts to resolve that specific issue.
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*[Admittedly, there are a LOT of other variables that drive stock price performance, so we also agree that these results should be taken with a grain of salt as it’s unlikely that the analysts controlled for extraneous variables like operational efficiency, impact of supply chain and materials, sales and marketing investments, not to mention analyst coverage, etc. across the analyzed companies.]
Nick Toman is a senior director in CEB’s Sales & Solutions practice, overseeing the global research operation and product development around Sales, and co-author of The Effortless Experience: Conquering the New Battleground for Customer Loyalty. Nick is a frequent contributor on sales and customer service topics for a number of blogs, including that of the Harvard Business Review and Freakonomics. For more articles from Shep Hyken and his guest contributors go to customerserviceblog.com
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January 8, 2014
You Must Have the Answers to These Two Customer Service Questions
Customer Benefits
In a recent newsletter I shared a number of customer service questions to ask yourself and your team. These were meant to be “conversation starters” and they managed to spark a lot of good conversation via feedback and ideas from our Shepard Letter readers and our YouTube video subscribers.
One of the most popular customer service questions was the first one, which was:
What three things do you do best that differentiates you from your competitors?
These must be benefits that the competitors won’t be able to say about themselves. For example, if you say, “We provide great customer service,” or, “Our people are really friendly,” don’t think the competition doesn’t say the same thing. They do. By the way, whatever you come up with needs to be important to the customer. It shouldn’t just be different. It should be a benefit. It should make a difference. Some better examples might be:
We are the only manufacturer that can offer a 24 hour turn-around on special orders.
Or, we are the only seafood restaurant in town that catches their own fish daily.
We are the only store in our area that is open 24/7, in case you need something in the middle of the night or on a holiday when other stores are closed.
That question sparked some great conversation with a colleague, Dennis Snow, a wonderful speaker who worked at Disney for 20 years. We did a Google Hangout together, which I refer to as a Customer Service Hangout, and he has a very cool customer service question:
What three things do you want your customers to say about you when they walk away?
This is part of what you promise your customers. It’s your brand. While your competition may be able to deliver on some similar things, you still want your customers saying this specifically about you. Some examples might be:
They have the most knowledgeable people that always have the answers to my questions.
Those people are the friendliest people I have had the privilege of working with.
Whenever I make an appointment with that business, I can always count on them being on time.
Dennis’s question perfectly complements the question about what differentiates you from your competitors. One question is the why and the other question is the what.
Here are the three reasons why you should do business with us, and these are the three things we want you to experience when you do business with us. You really need both.
If you come up with the answers to these questions, you’ve just doubled your Triple Threat. I guess that makes you a Sextuple Threat!
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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January 6, 2014
5 Top Customer Service Articles For the Week of January 6, 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.
Streamlining the Customer Experience with Social Media and Mobile Tech by Rick Delgado
(Social Media Today) With the rise in use of smartphones and tablets, it’s time for businesses to start thinking about how they can reach out to the mobile consumer and use mobile technology to their advantage.
My Comment: On the first read of this article I thought it may be relevant to just B-2-C. However, I believe that any business can benefit from delivering a better social media and online experience. Perfectly summed up in the second sentence of the article: “If we ever came across a company that didn’t have a website, we’d not only be surprised but also pretty annoyed and take our business elsewhere.”
Five predictions for customer experience in 2014 by Mike Wittenstein
(Retail Customer Experience) Here are five things that I believe will impact customer experience in the coming months.
My Comment: We won’t know for another twelve months if these predictions are accurate, but I especially like number two, which basically says that B2B brands will start adopting B2C practices. Great food for thought!
Five Simple Customer Experience Improvement Tips to Jump-Start 2014 by Jeannie Walters
(360Connext) The calendar has turned, friends. After a month of making predictions, we are now on the road to a full 2014. Instead of talking about what you should PLAN on doing, let’s talk about what you can DO to improve your customer experience. Today. Like right now.
My Comment: A very simple but powerful list of things to do to enhance the customer experience. How many companies do you work with that really do focus on the customer, listen to them, listen to employees, think about the future and never criticize a customer behind his/her back? Would be nice if everyone we did business with followed this list.
Seven fearless CX Predictions for 2014 by Stan Phelps
(9 INCH MARKETING) Baseball legend Casey Stengel once said, “Never make predictions, especially about the future.” It’s strong advice for today’s unpredictable climate. Yet we enjoy prognosticating, especially at the end of the year. So, here are my seven fearless predictions for customer experience in 2014.
My Comment: While the article refers to these as seven predictions for customer service/experience, I think it is a darn good list with ideas worth implementing. My prediction… If a company can make any of the predictions a reality, they will have more success in the form of more business and loyalty.
5 Lessons All Departments Can Learn From the Customer Service Department by Blake Landau
(Huffington Post) Forget Robo Cop. Do you want security for your business? Go gaga over service. A service oriented approach to business is the only choice for the future. Those who don’t recognize this will not be here to make mistakes in the future. Here are my five tips from support. Feel free to share yours in the comments section.
My Comment: There is a reason that other departments can learn from the customer service department. It’s because customer service really isn’t a department at all. It’s a philosophy; an attitude. It can be the sales, marketing, HR, IT, etc., we all have customers, either internal or external. Take all of the standard “outside customer” techniques and bring them inside of the company to the internal customer, and you will be an amazing place to work and do business with.
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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