Customer Service Tip of the Week | Customer Service Solutions, Inc. - Page 183

Home  /  Re-Invigorate Your Clients – 7/30/13 TOW  /  Customer Service Tip of the Week

A Complaint is a Gift - 5/7/24


A complaint is a gift.  Okay, so the complainer is not always a “gift.”  The customer’s delivery of the complaint is sometimes more like a stocking filled with coal than a vase filled with roses.  But this is why we need to be able to differentiate the complaint from Read more

Mastering Confidence in Customer Service - 4/30/24


It’s not what you said…it’s how you said it. If you’ve ever had someone say this to you, raise your hand.  (I just raised my hand) Usually this is being said when someone is upset with you, but regardless of the reason, that phrase illustrates that HOW we say something often Read more

Be Amazing - 4/23/24


Watching Michael Jordan steal a pass and then dunk a basketball is amazing.  Taking a rocket to the moon is amazing.  The taste of my mom’s homemade beef soup is amazing. We all have our personal examples of what is amazing.  Usually, it’s something that we cannot comprehend, that we Read more

Talk About Yourself to Build Customer Confidence - 4/16/24


When you’re dealing with somebody who is anxious or nervous about a situation, a customer who feels like they don’t have much control, an individual who is unsure and uncertain, it’s important to put the customer at ease.  It’s important to build their comfort level.  It’s important to help Read more

The Proven Value in What You Do - 4/9/24


Forbes wrote an article last year based on a compilation of the results of research on customer service and the customer experience; it was titled:  100 Customer Experience Stats For 2023. In reading the article, you’ll note that many of these key research findings are about you – the value Read more

A Tale of Two Texts - 4/2/24


Having to get allergy shots once a week is never fun, and for Janet, it became an even bigger frustration. She had the shots typically scheduled on Tuesday around 10:30 in the morning, figuring she would avoid the morning rush as well as the lunch rush by going mid-morning.  However, Read more

The Secret Sauce for Great Customer Service - 3/26/24


I was working with the League Office for a major American sport several years back, and one of the executives asked me to describe our Secret Sauce that helped our clients improve the fan experience and customer retention.  I gave him a sense of what makes us unique and Read more

The Miracle of an Apology - 3/19/24


Unfortunate but true story… The manager basically lost his mind.  He terminated his employee on the spot.  She had told the customer that there was going to be a delay in the shipment.  The employee called up the customer ahead of time to let the customer know what was about Read more

It’s Not About the 5-Minute Wait - 3/12/24


Robert went into his supervisor’s office to update her on a situation at the payment desk.  Robert said that a customer was about fourth or fifth in line, waiting to be served, and the customer was complaining loudly about the wait.  He was there to make a property tax Read more

Lessons from the Greats - 3/5/24


I was recently facilitating a workshop on the customer experience, and I made the point that it’s usually beneficial to look at your personal life for great experiences; identify what really resonates with you in a positive way in order to uncover ideas to improve your own customer service. So, Read more

•••••

Re-Invigorate Your Clients – 7/30/13 TOW

Posted on July 30, 2013 in Customer Service Tip of the Week Please leave a comment

The motivational speaker had his theme for the day – Re-Invigorate Yourself! He said, “In order to Re-Invigorate Yourself, you have to make two assumptions. First, ‘RE’ means you’ve been “Invigorated” in the past so that you can be invigorated again. Second, the idea that you are going to ‘Re-INVIGORATE’ means that you are not currently invigorated. Maybe your life is stale. Your attitude has gone negative. Your perception of yourself or your life has dimmed.”

Whereas this motivational speaker was focusing on how his audience could reinvigorate themselves, one of the attendees had a different twist on the speaker’s points.

Janet was an account representative for a pro sports team, and her focus was applying this concept to her clients.

“How do I determine if my clients are currently invigorated? How can I determine their relationship with my club, their perception of their game time experience, their feelings about the value of their season tickets? How do I determine if my clients are not currently invigorated?”

“Because that lack of passion can turn into apathy, and apathy can result in lost business. And to ‘RE’ invigorate them, I have to determine when they were passionate about our club and their relationship with us. . .and why?”

Sometimes, in order to keep customers for the long-term, we have to take Janet’s perspective. We need to uncover those customers who appear NOT to be enjoying their relationship or experience with us, those that don’t appear happy, seem more apathetic, aren’t responding to messages as quickly or frequently, or aren’t participating in activities as often.

We need to proactively go to them, gain their feedback, and understand why they were excited in the past – and maybe why they’re not so excited today.

Keep in mind that your competitors’ sales people are passionate about taking your customers, so match that passion.

Find customers losing their enthusiasm for your organization, and look for ways to re-invigorate their passions in your business.

 


Don’t (E)-mail It In – 7/23/13 TOW

Posted on July 23, 2013 in Customer Service Tip of the Week Please leave a comment

In the wonderful world of texting and 140 character Tweets, where the ultra-brief is ultra-in, e-mail in business needs to be viewed as a different animal. It’s different than LOL and OMG. It’s different than #CoolBeans. It’s a business letter. It reflects on your professionalism, intelligence, level of empathy, and communication skills.

Sometimes people get lazy with e-mail; they press “Send” when they really should have called instead. Or they press “Send” without reviewing it, and then miscommunications and hurt feelings result.

So let’s review a quick list of e-mail tips; first the “Do’s.” Do. . .

  • Use the “1 Minute Test;” ask yourself, could someone read this e-mail, and in one minute understand the key points and what they must do? If not, modify it to remove any barriers to the e-mail being read.
  • Use personalized greetings/closings to set a professional/cordial tone.
  • Use it when you need to set clear expectations of what will happen next, and by when.
  • Include your contact information (particularly phone and, if possible, address) in the footer to make it easy for the reader to know how to contact you via other means.
  • Use ALL CAPS only in Header Sections. This can help on longer e-mails or to ensure the reader’s understanding.

Now the “Don’ts.” Do NOT. . .

  • Send without proofing and spell-checking – E-mails riddled with spelling errors can make you and your message lose credibility.
  • Seem defensive, sarcastic, or purely negative – It brings in negative emotion, which is especially risky in written form.
  • Overuse e-mail “shorthand” – It can be misinterpreted by the reader or simply not understood; one client got an e-mail from his boss saying “LOL.” The boss meant “Laugh Out Loud.” The employee thought he meant “Lots of Love.”
  • Write hastily without reviewing for content, tone, ease of reading, etc. – It makes you appear impatient in your e-mail response.
  • Use e-mail as a weapon such as copying the recipient’s supervisor when you have a complaint (particularly if this is the first time you’ve addressed the issue) – It’s unprofessional and weak, and it can break down trust/relationships.
  • Use e-mail when something is urgent – Many people today still do not check e-mail that frequently; phone and face-to-face are better avenues.
  • Use e-mail if at all possible when responding to complaints, particularly where emotions are involved – Negative emotions and e-mail rarely mix well.
  • • Use e-mail when a series of questions are being asked (or comments being shared) back and forth – It’s turned into a conversation at this point; pick up a phone or go visit the person to dialogue instead.

When it comes to professionalism in business writing, don’t (E)-mail it in.

 


When Metrics Mask Reality – 7/16/13 TOW

Posted on July 16, 2013 in Customer Service Tip of the Week Please leave a comment

Michael has the pleasure of knowing a board member for a nationwide retail chain. Michael thoroughly enjoys knowing this gentleman on a personal level and learning about his perspective on business.

Since Michael has been a customer of the business, one day he decided to ask the board member how the board feels about their company’s customer service. The board member’s response was “Oh! We’re doing great! We just passed our biggest competitor in the national ratings, and our metrics on the store customer service are generally trending up!”

Michael was somewhat astonished at the response, since this company has a reputation for horrible customer service. Since Michael hadn’t been to his local store in a few weeks, he thought that maybe they had improved.

So that weekend, Michael needed to buy a certain type of flower that his wife was requesting – a white wave petunia. Not wanting to make a 20 minute round trip without knowing they had that type of plant, Michael called the store first. After going through 5 menus on the phone system, Michael selected the right option (or so he had hoped) and was transferred to the nursery; he hung up after the phone rang for the 18th time with nobody answering.

He then hopped in his car to go there anyway as it was getting late in the day. When Michael entered the nursery area, he immediately walked up to the cashier and waited behind the only customer in line. Since that conversation was taking several minutes, Michael walked to the flower pots and began looking for the plant. There Michael saw every petunia known to man. . .except a white wave petunia.

So he went back to the cashier, and when the cashier was done helping the customer, Michael asked for help.

“I’m just a cashier,” responded the employee. “I don’t know what those are; why don’t you go ask an employee back in lumber?”

“Where?,” Michael responded.

“Back in the back quadrant over there; they’re over there,” the cashier replied.

Then Michael went to the ‘back quadrant,’ but there were no employees around.

Michael left without a white wave petunia, without a good feeling about the store, and with the definite suspicion that this board member had never shopped at his own stores.

Metrics can look good, but the experience can be bad.

Trust data to a point, but verify what the experience is like in reality. Experience your business like a customer would experience it.

 


« Previous   1 2 ... 178 179 180 181 182 183 184 185 186 187   Next »