Shep Hyken's Blog, page 234
November 18, 2013
5 Top Customer Service Articles For the Week of November 18, 2013
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.
Eleven Ways To Create Real Employee Engagement From Ground Up by Michael Houlihan and Bonnie Harvey
(Young Upstarts) Here are 11 tactics to help business owners create and increase employee engagement in their organizations (Warning: They may require some major overhauling).
My Comment: I love common sense ideas, and that is what this article is filled with. Employee engagement doesn’t need to be rocket science. It is all about treating employees with dignity and respect. They in turn will take care of business – and your customers! This is an outstanding list of simple, common sense ways to develop employee engagement.
Starbucks Beats Competition in Building Customer Loyalty By Nate Matherson
(The Street) I want to highlight three keys steps the company (Starbucks) has taken to ensure its customer loyalty into the distant future.
My Comment: Starbucks is one of the companies to admire, emulate and learn from when it comes to customer service, customer experience, and what this article focuses on, customer loyalty. They have a great product, great service and create an excellent experience that is copied by many. Their loyalty program isn’t just about marketing and perks. I believe customers would still go to Starbucks without the perks. The question I always ask my clients who create loyalty/incentive programs for customers is this: If you didn’t give them the free ________ (fill in the blank), would the customer still do business with you? There is a lot to learn from Starbucks.
Five Tips for Making and Keeping Happy Customers Judy Philbin
(Impact Blog!) How do you know you have a satisfied customer? Re-orders? No complaints? Perhaps, but not necessarily.
My Comment: Here are some great tips to creating happy customers, but there is a bigger message to the article: Be careful how you define a satisfied customer. My take on this is that satisfied customers aren’t loyal customers. There’s a big difference.
Customers From Hell – Top 4 Tips For Handling by Iain Swanston
(Iain Swanston) Whilst it may be impossible to completely eliminate Customers From Hell, it certainly makes sense to do as much as we possibly can, to reduce the numbers.
My Comment: This is a great list about dealing with difficult customers. I especially like number two, which is about “getting it right versus being right.”
The Future of Customer Service: 20 Expert Predictions for 2014 & Beyond by Tricia Morris
(Parature) Here are 20 expert predictions affecting the near future of customer service and the customer experience, with the first originally made in 2012, already realized.
My Comment: This is an amazing list. And I love that each item is linked to an article or source. It’s never too late to prepare for the future.
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 ©MMXIII, Shep Hyken)
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November 15, 2013
Guest Blog: 6 Ways Small Businesses Can Operate Like a Billion Dollar Juggernaut on a Shoestring Budget
This week on our Friends on Friday guest blog post, my friend and colleague Michel Falcon shares six strategies to make any small businesses successful. I especially like number 2 as I strongly believe training is a key to success.
Small business owners admire billion dollar brands for their operational strategies and programs similar to how young athletes admire Lebron James for his jump shot. However, small business owner’s admiration can quickly turn into “I wish we had the budget to…” after concluding that they don’t have the same infrastructure to create these programs. This is where I think most small business owners are misguided in their thought. Small businesses, in any industry, can reap the same benefits as these billion dollar juggernauts if they work smart and hard.
There are six areas where a small business can operate like a billion dollar brand:
1. Refined Recruiting: How are you hiring? Are you simply posting an ad on Craigslist, crossing your fingers and hoping for the best?
If so, this is a great opportunity to refine the way you are operating. Similar to how you carefully select who you invite to your wedding or house warming party you need to strategically think of who you are going to welcome to your place of business.
Tip: What type of questions are you asking candidates? Are they generic, easy to answer questions or ones that really make the candidate think and challenge their intelligence and thought process? Spend some time this week evaluating the questions you are asking.
2. World Class Customer Experience Training: What is your training and on boarding program like? Does your new team member have a designated period of time to truly understand the business?
One of the biggest disconnects in business today is the lack of investment in employee training. Now, you may have a nicely developed program but what does it consist of? If you’re still simply teaching your team to “be nice” or “look your customers in the eye and shake their hand” then you have an opportunity to improve.
Tip: We need to be teaching our front line employees, the people who create customer loyalty within our business, on the high level terms and strategies of customer experience such as: what is organic growth, what are the three customer personality types, what is brand admiration and how do you earn it.
3. Increased Customer Intelligence: Most business owners believe they know how their customers behave but having anecdotal thoughts isn’t enough nor is it accurate. How are you gathering customer data today, to increase revenue and profitability tomorrow?
We spend a lot of time trying to increase customer acquisition and completely ignore that we haven’t truly got to know our current customers. What do they love about us? What are their aversions? Try and understand your current customers better, I guarantee if you focus on them you will be able to develop strategies to increase the amount they spend with you and frequency of visits.
Tip: Use Survey Monkey to easily develop a formal customer survey. I personally recommend using the Net Promoter Score as I’ve seen it grow businesses if properly deployed.
4. Employee Recognition: Don’t reward your employees positive behaviors and actions by acting like their uncle: giving them cash.
Yes, I love cash as much as the next person but I don’t believe it’s the right way to incentivize employees (if you’ve hired correctly). Team members that genuinely want to contribute and grow within your company want “meaning.” They want a reason to contribute that is beyond money because cash and gifts can be spent or lost ruining the experience of how they earned it.
Tip: As a small business owner or leader within your organization, set a recurring calendar meeting every week for 30 minutes. During this time your only responsibility is to find someone in your organization who is doing great work and take them out for coffee or lunch. Leave your phone and laptop at your desk and really get to know the people who are building your business. Do not cancel this meeting. Ever!
5. Leverage Your Advocates: “We need to increase the amount of our customers we have” says the small business owner. This is common in business, we wake up every Monday morning hunting for new customers.
Before you do this, what have you done to increase referrals? If you’re delivering a memorable customer experience your customers will be more than willing to help you grow your business. You just need to ask them, business is not a passive person’s game.
Tip: Determine who your most loyal customers are. Now, pick up the phone or put together an email thanking them for their business and simply ask them to think of 2-5 people that also might need your service or product. Your PPC or SEO campaign can wait because this works very well. Yes, it’s that easy!
6. No Customer Left Behind: As consumers, we get so angry when a company ignore our complaints or move like snails to handle them. But, wait, we do the exact same thing when we are in the position of handling them.
A customer who has had a complaint properly handle will become more loyal than if nothing went wrong at all. Plus, you will give them a great story to tell. After all, business has moved into the story telling game. Whatever company has the most amount of customers telling positive stories about their brands is winning.
Tip: Set a service level agreement (SLA) to handle customer complaints. Contact the customer within one business day and document the reasons why the complaint happened in the first place. Once you’ve gathered enough “customer intelligence” started creating initiatives to reduce these complaint reasons.
Addressing these six tactics isn’t a walk in the park. It will take time and effort but the beauty is that they are low cost initiatives. You may not be able to spend as much as a billion dollar behemoth but you can definitely work as hard as them. Sweaty equity is a beautiful thing.
Michel Falcon is a customer and employee experience coach and keynote speaker based in Vancouver, Canada. He works with organizations who want to develop strategies to strengthen their customer experience efforts and increase their revenue and profits. If you enjoyed this post, more of his thoughts and full bio can be found on his website www.michelfalcon.com. You can connect with him on Linkedin: http://www.linkedin.com/in/michelfalcon and Twitter https://twitter.com/MichelFalcon.
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November 13, 2013
Ten Ways to Create a Customer-Centric Culture
Customer Service CultureHow do you create a customer-centric culture? Start on the inside, with employees. I’ve written and blogged a lot about this, and if this subject is important to you, I hope you’ll read some of the articles on CustomerServiceBlog.com. In the meantime, here is a list that will help you create a customer-centric culture:
Define the customer service culture. This is where customer-centricity begins. Start with the end in mind. What does the perfect customer service experience look like for your customer? From there, determine what will deliver that experience.
Communicate the culture. Do your employees really understand or know what your culture/vision is all about? Make sure it is simple enough for all employees to understand – even memorize.
Hire to the culture. You have to have the right people in place; people who have both the skills and the attitude to take care of the customer. But there is more. You also need employees who have the personality that is in sync with the culture. That’s different than attitude. Don’t confuse the two of them.
Train to the culture. You may have hired great employees, but regardless of their amazing backgrounds, if you don’t train them to your company’s culture, you can’t expect that they will be great for your company. Start training right away, focusing on the soft skills; your customer service expectations and your core values.
Everyone must participate in the training. Everyone, and that includes the leadership of an organization, must participate in the training. Think of the negative message that might be perceived if leadership is noticeably absent from customer service training, especially if it is being touted as something extremely important to the company.
Model the behavior. Everyone must step up and be a role model for others to emulate, especially leadership. Treat each other with the same respect and dignity as you would the customer – maybe even more so.
Empower everyone to be a customer service leader. Once you define your customer service standards, don’t encumber your employees with rules that get in the way. Instead, give them the power to do what it takes to meet and exceed those standards.
Recognize others when they do it well. Let people know they’re doing a great job. The recognition may be the motivation they need to continue, or even better, to take it to the next level.
Defend the culture when necessary. It is everyone’s job to defend the company’s culture. If someone is not acting in sync with the customer service standards, you have a teaching opportunity. Grab it and use it to help the employee grow to be more successful in the future.
Celebrate success. When it is all working, let your people know. Employees love to be appreciated and respected. Celebrate when they are doing a great job. That doesn’t mean a party every week. It may be recognition at a weekly meeting or a mention in the company newsletter. Or, maybe it is something big, like an annual awards dinner.
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 ©MMXIII, Shep Hyken)
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November 11, 2013
5 Top Customer Service Articles For the Week of November 11, 2013
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.
Can You Improve Customer Service By Empowering Your Team? by Alistair Niederer
(Huffington Post) Your business has clear ideas about how it should present itself to the outside world. This leads to rules and guidelines about how employees should communicate with customers and others on the outside. But when those rules become so rigid that they appear to prevent the employee from helping a customer in need then you will find that what is really needed is balance.
My Comment: This is a powerful article and the author makes a great point about the idea of rules and guidelines. I’ve always thought rules derail an employee trying to deliver a great customer experience. I’ve felt the word “guidelines” was a better choice of words, as it gives some latitude to the employee who wants to take initiative to help a customer. This article perfectly sums it up:
“Instead of creating mountains of guidelines, companies like Ritz Carlton define standards, the standards they expect their employees to reach. Then the employees are cut loose and allowed to help customers however needed – so long as the standards are maintained there is no need for formal guidelines on every single problem that might occur.”
Love this!
Top 4 Customer Service Tips Inspired by Danny Meyer by Natasha Wyatt
(Sparkcentral) In Danny Meyer’s book “Setting the Table,” he tells the story of how he became one of the world’s most famous restaurateurs. One reason Union Square Hospitality has churned out exceptionally recognizable restaurants is its relentless quest – and dedication – to serving the customers.
Danny’s hospitality philosophy can be applied and transferred to serving customers over social media as well. Let’s take a look at some of his tips.
My Comment: Danny Meyer is one of the people everyone should pay attention to when he talks about taking care of customers. This is a great article with four excellent lessons about delivering an excellent customer service experience.
Customer Service Quotes by Desk.com
(Desk.com) Some of the most successful businesses have one thing in common — great customer service. Unlike differentiators of quality, innovation or price, great customer service is a differentiator that can’t be bought; it’s a competitive advantage that can only be earned.
To keep things in perspective, here is a collection of the best, most inspirational customer service quotes.
My Comment: If you want to be inspired – or want your fellow employees to be inspired – then check out this Slideshare presentation with 50 great customer service quotes. Find the ones you like, print them out and hang them on your walls, put them in your newsletters, etc.
How Great Customer Service Leads to Great Customer Loyalty by Denyse Drummond-Dunn
(Business2Community) The number one challenge faced by marketers today is reaching their customers, which may come as a surprise in this multi-channel, always on, environment we live in. However, once you have reached them and convinced them to buy, you still have the, perhaps even tougher, challenge of keeping them. With so much on offer and the desire for novelty constantly growing, customer loyalty is declining. In fact, according to Bain & Co and Kantar Worldpanel UK Shopper Survey 2012 50 per cent of a brand’s ‘loyal’ users today will not be with them one year from now.
My Comment: Here is a simple list of three things that will help you connect with the customer and give a better experience. Sometimes it’s the simple ideas that make the most sense, which is why I’ve always believed that so much of customer service is common sense – that unfortunately is not always so common.
Create True Customer Loyalty: 10 Rules by Geoffrey James
(Inc) Customer loyalty comes from having a strong relationship with your customers. When they see you as a friend and ally, they’re reluctant to jump ship, even if it means they can get something a little cheaper.
My Comment: This is a great list of ten customer loyalty strategies and tactics. I especially like the first one that is about focusing on the relationship first. If you are more interested in taking care of the customer than making the sale, the sale will eventually come.
I also like number six, which is about the willingness to recommend a competitor. If the customer will be better served by recommending a competitor, then that is the right thing to do – which ties into number one, just mentioned above.
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 ©MMXIII, Shep Hyken)
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November 8, 2013
Guest Blog: A DIFFERENT KIND OF SOCIABILITY
This week on our Friends on Friday guest blog post, my friend and colleague Ted Janusz writes about worker satisfaction. He provides an excellent argument for how important it is to show employees appreciation and how this can influence the customer experience.
Have you ever noticed that most customers tend to ignore people who work with the public, treating them like cogs in a machine unless the customers want to complain?
Have you also noticed how most of these customers start off their requests (or what may be more accurately described as demands) with the word “gimme” instead of “please?”
This afternoon, I walked into my local Subway store. I announced to the sandwich artist behind the counter, “It’s great to see you again!” She beamed and the rest of our conversation as she worked went something like this:
Sandwich Artist: “Did you know that I got engaged?”
Me: “No, I didn’t! Congratulations!”
S.A.: ‘Yes, he’s a really nice guy. He’s a tech at a local hospital.”
Me: “‘Really nice guy,’ huh? Isn’t that an oxymoron?”
S.A. (laughs): ‘Yes, I could tell you some dating horror stories, if you’d like to hear them.”
Me: “Guess I am lucky I’ve never had to date a guy.”
S.A.: ‘You sure are! Want to see my ring?” (She takes off her engagement ring and hands the diamond-studded arrangement to me.)
Me (waving my hand): “Oh no, I’d probably just drop it. But my, what a rock!”
As we were talking I notice something. The sandwich artist was loading my sub with piles and piles of chicken. There is now enough meat on the bun to fill three sandwiches. As the manager walks by, I begin to feel sorry for the sandwich artist. What will the manager tell her later about giving away all of the profits?
I realized that the sandwich artist was treating me exactly how I was treating her. She was subtly trying to show me appreciation in the only way she knew how, by treating me as a special customer. (By the way, I don’t suggest using this technique as a manipulative ploy. I just do it because I get a kick out of it.)
The Difference
In worker satisfaction surveys over the last 75 years, the number-one complaint of employees is neither wages nor benefits, but rather a lack of appreciation. People don’t work for companies. They work for people. And usually, employees don’t hear from the boss until they make a mistake.
According to Howard Feiertag and John Hogan, authors of Lessons from the Field, studies show that in 68 percent of cases where businesses lose customers, it is because of a lack of appreciation. We ignore our customers to death, so they go away to find someone else who will appreciate their business.
I am sure you have experienced this. You walk into a dry cleaners and the first thing they say, without even looking up at you, is, “Lastname?” You walk in next week, again you hear “Lastname?” You walk in the week after that…never mind, there is no week after that. You have already moved on to another business establishment that you hope will value your patronage. We all want to frequent businesses like the one portrayed in the television sitcom “Cheers,” “where everybody knows your name.”
Why do I mention this? 80 percent of consumer choices are based on personal recommendations. The social media tools we discuss in this column only make it easier for your customers to spread the word about your business virally.
Look at the motion picture industry. How often do you see a film advertised on television a month or so after its release to try to boost attendance? Never. In fact, the first weekend of a motion picture’s release tends to make or break the film. Why? Among other reasons, people are using Twitter to tell their friends about how good or bad the flick is, often right from the movie theater! Your satisfied employees and customers are your best source of advertising period.
But it all starts with you showing both your employees and your customer’s sociability.
Ted Janusz is a master facilitator, and coach who has presented over five hundred full-day presentations. He loves to work with people, and it shows. His energy, enthusiasm and expertise will ignite, inform and motivate your audience.
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November 6, 2013
Customer Service Rules vs. Guidelines
Lessons about Customer ServiceSometimes “company policy” drives me crazy. Often policies are perceived as unbendable rules. When it comes to customer service, the words policies and rules may not be the best choice of words for creating a customer focused environment. The story I’m about to share is filled with lessons about customer service. You’ve probably even had this happen to you.
Three of us walked into a restaurant for dinner. A fourth person was going to join us, but he was running late. He said to start without him.
We told the hostess we needed a table for four. There were several open tables. She noticed there were just three of us and asked where the fourth was. We told her he was running late and we were going to order without him. That’s when she said:
I’m sorry. We can’t seat you until your entire party is here.
Although we told her he was running late and we wanted to order without him, it made no difference to her. She was following the company “policy”. By the way, I can appreciate the restaurant’s position. Some guests sit at the table and don’t order until the rest of the party shows up. In that case, I understand. Good restaurants tell their guests they will be seated at the very next table once the rest of the party arrives. Good solution, but that didn’t apply to this situation.
Now, back to the story. What happened next could have come from a script from Seinfeld.
I said, “Okay there are only three of us. We need a table for three.
She said, “Sir, you’re lying to me.”
Darn, she caught me. (I’m being sarcastic.) I said, “Just give us a table for three.”
I thought for sure she would start to argue with me. After all, she apparently wanted to follow the rules and she had just called me a liar. But she didn’t argue. Instead she grabbed three menus and immediately seated us at a table… that had four chairs!
This is the kind of situation that really makes my blood boil. How many customers has she upset in the past – or will upset in the future?
Consider this:
The employee was just doing her job. She was probably told by a boss not to seat incomplete parties. In the restaurant business, this usually applies to situations where there is large party and the first person shows up.
She was not empowered to make good decisions on behalf of the customer.
She probably wasn’t trained properly on how to make those good decisions.
And if she was trained, whoever hired her may have made a bad hiring decision.
Let’s assume this employee is a good person, who with training can understand and deliver a good customer service experience. It’s okay to have some guidelines and boundaries. Be careful about calling them rules or policies. The word “guideline” implies some flexibility. Employees must understand that they bend to meet the needs of the customer, as long as it doesn’t cause harm to the company.
If you have the right system in place and the customer service experience is clearly defined, you are off to a good start. Recognize that it is your people that will deliver on the experience, so choose them wisely. Hire people that understand customer service. Teach them how to deliver your brand of customer service. Coach them when you see opportunities to improve. Praise them when you see them doing it right.
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 tohttp://www.thecustomerfocus.com. Follow on Twitter: @Hyken
(Copyright ©MMXIII, Shep Hyken)
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November 4, 2013
5 Top Customer Service Articles For the Week of November 4, 2013
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 Secret Magic Behind Netflix Customer Service by Timothy Stenovec
(Huffington Post) Pretending to be a fictional character or offering dating advice would probably get you reprimanded — or possibly fired — from the customer service department of most companies. At Netflix, taking on the persona of a Star Trek captain during a live chat with a customer gets you on national TV, a trip to Netflix headquarters in California, your very own captain’s shirt and an iPad mini.
My Comment: Netflix seems to have it together. They want to give great customer service – and they do. They empower their employees, let them inject their own personalities into their job and give them a very fulfilling employment experience. That’s part of what gets their employees engaged and makes the customers’ experiences even better.
Infographic: Horrifying Customer Service Can Be Deadly by James Jarnot
(Direct Marketing News) Customer service has a grim reputation, and customers aren’t putting up with these nightmare experiences anymore.
My Comment: In the spirit of Halloween, this infographic shares some terrifying statistics that will make you think twice about tricking your customers and delivering anything less than a good customer experience. Great compilation stats and facts.
Decoding Customer Service Speak: Are You Secretly Being Insulted? by Christopher Elliott
(MintLife) Spend enough time around customer service agents and you understand that what they say and what they mean are often two very different things.
My Comment: Sometimes the words we use with our customers don’t always send the right message. “You’re call is very important to us,” doesn’t work when the customer is forced to wait extended periods of time. How many phrases, acronyms or other industry/company jargon get in the way of communicating customer amazement to your customer?
10 Top Business Tycoons in the World Talk Customer Experience by Joana Armie
(Win the Customer!) Even the most savvy business tycoons in the world with their areas of business expertise have to rely on customer experience as a competitive advantage in today’s customer centric world.
My Comment: Put ten of the top CEO’s in a room and ask them to share one piece of customer service advice, this is what you get. Great article with great thoughts from some amazing business leaders.
10 Creative Ways To Deepen Customer Loyalty By Thomas Oppong
(Alltopstartups) Resolving customer complaints early and fast is your best bet at retaining the new age customer. Make the effort towards building customer loyalty and you have customers as long as your business exist. These are some of the best and practical ways to build and deepen customer loyalty.
My Comment: I love a good list to improve a business, and here are ten ways to create 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 tohttp://www.thecustomerfocus.com. Follow on Twitter: @Hyken
(Copyright ©MMXIII, Shep Hyken)
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November 1, 2013
Guest Blog: Names ARE A Big Deal
This week on our Friends on Friday guest blog post, my colleague Jeremy Watkin writes about the importance of using your customers name, correctly. I agree and believe that using a customers name enhances the customer experience.
I have an ongoing issue that has been nagging at me for a while and I really need to get it off my chest. First of all, you should know that the name given to me at birth is “Jeremy Watkin.” That is the correct spelling of my name and there are no acceptable alternate spellings to my name. I just needed to lay down those ground rules before proceeding.
As a guitar player, I have been loyal to one guitar manufacturer who I believe builds fantastic guitars at a terrific price. I have been so loyal in fact that I have purchased four different guitars from them and referred many guitarists to them. Upon purchasing and registering my new guitar they would enter me into their CRM system and register me to receive their quarterly magazine. The magazine really is a terrific publication and highlights the amazing craftsmanship of their instruments.
Shortly after registering my last guitar, I started receiving not one, not two, but three of their magazines each quarter! The best part is that they were addressed to Jeremy Watkin, Jeremy Watkins and Jaremy Watkins. Adding an “S” to the end of my last name is relatively common but the last one is just a bad misspelling. I laughed the first couple times when I received three copies of the magazine and just gave the extra copies to friends.
After six months or so, I finally decided to call their customer service. The representative said he fixed my problem but he didn’t. I continued to receive three at a time. I called customer service again and they said they fixed the problem and I can happily confirm I now only receive one magazine. There’s just one problem. The magazine is addressed to Jaremy Watkins!
There are a couple opportunities to learn from this story that I would like to highlight.
A Person’s Name Is Important- Dale Carnegie is famously quoted as saying “A person’s name to them is the sweetest sound in any language.” Allow me to slightly modify that quote. “Misspelling a person’s name or modifying a person’s name without their permission might sound like a swear word to them in any language.”
First Call Resolution Is Important- It is essential that you train your customer service team to resolve customer issues on the first call as much as possible. Agents should take a few extra moments to check their work, review it with their customers and get it right the first time. Failure to get it right the first, second or even third time may exasperate your customers and give them reason to go elsewhere.
Fixing The Underlying System Is Important- It’s entirely possible that there is a flaw in the company’s CRM system that needs to be addressed. I should probably show up as one person owning three guitars rather than three slightly different people with the same address owning three guitars.
Names are a fundamental component to the customer service process and are critical to successful human interaction. By referring to your customer by the correct name you communicate value to them and it’s one critical ingredient in building a deeper bond between that customer and your brand.
Jeremy Watkin is the Director of Customer Service for
Phone.com
and is cofounder and regular contributor on
Communicate Better Blog
. The blog is focused on observing and learning from both good and bad customer experiences. Follow Jeremy on
Twitter
and
LinkedIn
for more awesome customer service insights.
The post appeared first on Shep Hyken.
October 30, 2013
Respect your Customers’ Time: Resolve Customer Service Complaints Quickly
How Do you Deal with Bad Customer ServiceHow much time do you spend on the phone dealing with bad customer service?
According to a recent article by Brian O’Connell, writing in The Street, adults in the United States spend, on average, 364 minutes every year on the phone, waiting – and hoping – to fix a complaint. That’s about six and a half hours. Let’s put this in perspective. If you are one of these “average people,” in just a little over six years, you lose an entire work week of productivity; right about 40 hours! Worse than that, if you start thinking long term, as in about 25 years, you will have lost an entire month.
O’Connell’s information was based on data from Populus Research and Kana Software, who refer to the “complaint wait” as the “hidden price of doing business.” Some interesting stats and facts came from their study:
71% of US consumers have lodged a customer service complaint in the last three years and the time wasted on each complaint was one hour and four minutes.
Getting the problem resolved took three attempts and 69% of the customers had to repeat their complaint multiple times.
39% of people use the phone to lodge a complaint. 33% use email.
Only 7% turn to social media sites such as Facebook, Twitter and Yelp to vocalize their complaints.
That last statistic surprises me a bit. Based on other surveys, I thought more people had been turning to social media for customer service issues. 7% seems low. These are the “squeaky wheels that get the oil.” Even if the number is just 7%, these are the customers who broadcast negative publicity about your company to their friends, followers, and in some cases like Yelp, to the general public. That number is on the rise as consumers become better educated on how to effectively use social media to be heard and get their problems resolved.
For all types of businesses, especial B-2-C, the statistics in this article should be a wake-up call. I never thought about how much time the average customer spends on the phone dealing with complaints and other customer service issues. Time is a precious commodity, and if you “steal” it from a customer, you are showing a tremendous amount of disrespect.
When customers realize that a company they do business with is wasting their time by giving poor service, or forcing them to wait on the phone for customer support, they will consider finding another company to do business with who will give better service, quickly fix problems, and as a result, respect the customers’ time. Smart companies know this. They also know that is a value proposition that customers are willing to pay more for. So, here is your simple, common-sense, you-already-know-it-but-are-you-doing-it customer support strategy:
Fix problems quickly! And, with the right attitude!
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 tohttp://www.thecustomerfocus.com. Follow on Twitter: @Hyken
(Copyright ©MMXIII, Shep Hyken)
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October 28, 2013
5 Top Customer Service Articles For the Week of October 28, 2013
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.
We’re On the Phone 6.5 Hours With Bad Customer Service by Brian O’Connell
(The Street) If time really is money, consumers are getting short-changed waiting for their customer service complaints to be rectified. U.S. adults spend, on average, 384 minutes every year waiting to fix a complaint, or about 6.5 hours — almost a full work day.
My Comment: I never thought about how much time the average customer spends on the phone dealing with complaints and other customer service issues. Time is a precious commodity, and if you “steal” it from a customer, you are showing a tremendous amount of disrespect. For all types of businesses, especially B-2-C, the statistics in this article should be a wake-up call.
The Not-So-Surprising Lessons From Top-Down Employee Engagement By Mark Babbitt
(SAP Business Innovation) The reality is engagement is nothing but a “top down” matter – and the best among us lead by example in this area known to affect morale, productivity, culture and profits.
My Comment: There is no doubt about the great benefits of having engaged employees. Everything from happier employees, lower turnover, and perhaps one of the best benefits, happier customers, are just some of the good that can come from an engaged workforce. This great article is about how engagement, like the culture of the company, starts at the top. Leaders just can’t say they want it. They must be the best example.
Do You Think Your Customers Think You Care? by Michael Hinshaw
(MCorpConsulting) “Customer Care.” In the eyes of most customers, this is a vastly misused (if not oxymoronic) phrase. Because every company talks about it… but so few actually deliver. This disconnect between what companies say they do and what they actually do is at the heart of customer experience – both good experiences, and bad.
My Comment: Theodore Roosevelt said, “No one cares how much you know, until they know how much you care.” It’s the same with customers. They must know you care, for them to begin to care about you – and doing business with you. If the company doesn’t care about their customers, and fulfill the brand promise (and the advertised promise), it’s just a matter of time before a customer finds somewhere else to do business with that cares more.
Want To Find Brand Ambassadors? Start With Your Employees by Branderati
(Branderati) The 2012 Edelman Trust Barometer, a trust and credibility survey that collects data from more than 30,000 people, found that regular rank-and-file company employees have more credibility than executives. While this might seem like bad news for companies – it should be considered a fantastic opportunity. By turning employees into trusted brand ambassadors, companies bring their strongest asset and their most vocal internal advocates in direct contact with their customer base.
My Comment: Most companies focus on converting their customers to brand ambassadors. As this fantastic article points out, start on the inside with your own people. Customers will get the positive vibe from the employees who should be the company’s strongest evangelists. And, while I’m mentioned in the article, don’t let that deter you. (HA!) There are some great quotes from other business leaders and some great thoughts to consider.
9 Companies That Offer Great Customer Service by John Egan
(The Sparefoot Blog) In the interest of celebrating excellent customer service, we’ve compiled a list of nine companies known for going the extra mile for the folks who use their products and services. (Keep in mind, though, that people do run into problems with even the cream of the customer service crop.) Here’s our list, in alphabetical order.
My Comment: This is a list of the who’s who of companies who know how to amaze their customers. But more important is that the author has given some insight to why they are great. There are a few nuggets to learn from in the “Bottom Line” notes on each of these companies. How many of these do you incorporate (or could incorporate) into your customer service strategy?
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 ©MMXIII, Shep Hyken)
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