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Is Their Poor Planning Your Emergency? - 12/17/24


Have you ever heard the saying:  Your poor planning is not my emergency. I’ve heard it said often – not necessarily directly from one person to another.  More typical is that I hear it from the person having to drop everything and do something immediately because someone else didn’t think Read more

Empathy Examples for Everyday Situations - 12/10/24


I’ve often said that empathy is the single most important characteristic of people who are great at customer service.  If empathy is essentially “to understand the other person,” it helps so much to have that ability in order to specifically help someone.  To talk to what’s unique about them.  Read more

Tell Them Why You’re Giving Thanks - 12/3/24


Thank you! Merci! Danke! Doumo! Gracias! It seems like every language has a translation of Thank You.  Even though I only fluently speak English and speak Spanish, un poco, I – and probably most of you – have heard some or all of the translations of "Thank You” noted above.  Read more

Refine Your Decision-making Process - 11/26/24


Every day, you make decisions of what to do and what not to do.  And in the world of customer service, often the affected parties are our customers, our co-workers, and our company.  Here are a few quotes to consider when you’re thinking about evaluating and refining your decision-making Read more

Acting on the Guiding Principles for Great Customer Service - 11/19/24


In last week’s tip, we shared 5 Guiding Principles for Great Customer Service.  This week, let’s address what “taking action” looks like on those key principles.  If last week was about what to do and WHY, this week is about the HOW. Engage with Interest: To engage with interest, proactively Read more

Guiding Principles for Great Customer Service - 11/12/24


It’s hard to know every procedure, every policy, every technique possible to handle every situation correctly.  After all, maybe our procedures are standard, but our customers are not.  Maybe our policies stay pretty consistent, but our customers’ needs and issues, their attitudes and actions can change from customer to Read more

From a Simple Question to an Exceptional Experience - 11/5/24


Phyllis loves her job.  It’s not just because she loves being a customer service representative, not just because she really likes her co-workers, and not just because she enjoys her company.  It’s because she really appreciates her customers, as well. A customer had ordered a register book off the company Read more

Fix One Problem without Creating Another - 10/29/24


If you’ve ever had an issue with your dishwasher, this will sound familiar.  I’ve dealt with so many dishwashers over the years, and they always seem to have some kind of an issue.  Maybe it’s because of the mix of water and technology, but for whatever reason, these never Read more

Delight Your Customers - 10/22/24


Buddy the Bug Man was different.  His company was new, and the only reason why Janet tried him out was that the service she had used for years just wasn’t working.  Whether it was mosquitoes in the yard, ants in the kitchen, or cockroaches flying through on their way Read more

A More Complete Definition of Responsiveness - 10/15/24


I was purchasing something recently that was being custom-developed.  At one point, the company’s employee and I had a good 20 e-mails going back and forth - 10 from each of us.  Unfortunately, I broke my own rule, and I did not pick up the phone after 2 or Read more

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Technology Helps to Keep Customer Relationships Healthy

Posted on May 12, 2010 in Business Advice, Education, Healthcare, World of Customer Service Please leave a comment

With the passing of Healthcare Reform, medical practices are bracing themselves for significant increases in appointments and workload as tens of millions more Americans anticipate acquiring health insurance. Having insurance eliminates a key barrier to utilization of healthcare services, so volumes should increase; yet there’s no guarantee that revenues flowing into medical practices will increase at the same rate as their workload.

So the question is how do they operate more efficiently? One key productivity driver in most businesses is the use of technology. Any many practices will use technology not only to become more efficient, but they’ll also use it to improve their customer relationships.

Technology can provide this dual role (increasing efficiencies and customer satisfaction) for virtually any business.

The practices will rely more and more on technology to send out appointment confirmations via e-mail. Reminders will be sent of the appointments as the date draws near. Satisfaction surveys will be launched post-visit via e-mail invitations. The practices will get more automated in their communications with their customers to ensure patients are prepared for their appointments, arrive, arrive on time, and provide feedback after the visit.

Think of how this applies to any business. The local courier service could use technology to keep their customers up-to-date on the stages of the order, pickup, and delivery – thereby eliminating most incoming/outgoing phone calls requesting status. The car dealership could use technology to ensure that the customer shows up on time and gains feedback on their experience while it’s fresh on the customer’s mind. The university’s admissions department could use technology to ensure that the prospective student and her parents know how to navigate the campus, understand where to access financial aid forms, and are kept up-to-date on the financial aid evaluation and admissions status.

Technology can be a great driver of efficiency, but it can also be a great communications tool with customers to keep them up-to-date and to keep your organization looking responsive to their needs.

Use technology to keep your customer relationships healthy.

Interested in improving your company’s customer service? See more information at: http://www.cssamerica.com/


The University versus the NBA

Posted on May 10, 2010 in Business Advice, Education, Sports Please leave a comment

There’s a lot that higher education and the National Basketball Association have in common. Yes, you read that correctly.

One of the biggest priorities that they have in common is their need to focus on their first year customers. The universities’ biggest risk of drop out or transfer occurs with freshmen. The NBA teams’ biggest risk of loss of season ticket holders comes with the first year season ticket holders. Both of these customer groups come in with certain expectations, certain dreams, certain perceptions that either they themselves have developed or that the organization has created with their marketing and recruiting and sales efforts. But the question is, how well are those expectations being met?

For organizations to do a great job in retaining first year customers – whether they be the student for the four-year university or the season ticket holder for the professional sports franchise – they need to make sure they have a “Year One Strategy.”

Much of what a Year One Strategy involves is research. Since you’re going through a sales process with a season ticket holder or going through a recruitment process for the new student, you need to take that opportunity to gather a great deal of intelligence on why they are coming to your organization and why they would go. You need to know what they understand and expect of their experience as a new customer, so you have an understanding of how well that will match with the reality that they are about to experience.

Setup an ongoing research strategy that involves an early survey of these individuals to gauge what their experience is like and what issues they might be having. As part of that Year One Strategy, you also need to have an ongoing intelligence-building set of research efforts taking place to gather more and more information about what is unique about these individuals, what they want to get out of their experience, and how satisfied they are with your organization.

The other key component of your Year One Strategy needs to be education. And that educational focus is not just for educational institutions, but it’s for any organization wanting to grow by retaining their existing customers. Part of the educational process needs to focus on getting your first year students, your first year customers, knowledgeable about your processes so they are comfortable working with your organization. You need to foster education of their knowledge of your products and services so they know how they can benefit from their relationship with your organization. You need to have an educational program in place to make sure you build comfort, confidence, and set realistic expectations in the minds of your customers.

Learn from the universities and the sports organizations of the world. Have a Year One Strategy that focuses on research and education.

Interested in improving your company’s customer service? See more information at: http://www.cssamerica.com/


Take Flight to Learn from Your Customers

Posted on March 9, 2010 in Business Advice, Education Please leave a comment

Chester University in the United Kingdom decided that it wanted to make sure that as many final year students as possible completed a survey on their satisfaction. A recent article (http://www.chesterfirst.co.uk/news/85995/university-s-novel-approach-to-student-satisfaction.aspx) highlighted a creative way that the Administration promoted the survey. They simulated an airport check-in environment (with a bank of computers), dressed like pilots, and marketed taking the survey as an event.

Wow!

Just to get information from students they did all this? Why?

They did it because according to one of the administrators “It’s vital that as many final year students in as many subject areas as possible complete the survey so that the university can gain a true picture of where it does well and where it could do better. The results can bring about real change, for example, previous surveys have led to increased access to library facilities before exams and more copies of key texts on reading lists being made available.”

This organization realized the link between the voice of the customer (in this case, the student) and changes that would truly benefit their customer base. They understood that some of the best ideas come straight from your customers. They understood that you have to appropriately promote a survey to get maximum interest and participation.

They understood that the ideas and suggestions of the customers of today could have a positive impact on the customers of tomorrow.

The next time you consider a survey, consider how you promote it. Consider what you want to ask of today’s customers that would enable you to better serve the customers of tomorrow.

Interested in improving your company’s customer service? See more information at: http://www.cssamerica.com/


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