survey | Customer Service Solutions, Inc. - Page 5

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

The Empathy Roadmap - 2/27/24


For some people, empathy comes naturally.  There’s an innate desire to learn about the other person and to sincerely convey that sense of interest and caring.  But for many of us, sometimes it helps to have a communication plan.  It helps to know what to do in order to Read more

“You’re the Boss” - 2/20/24


Terrence is excellent at what he does.  From a technical standpoint, he knows how to keep the facility clean.  He’s the lead custodian, and he knows that keeping things straight does not necessarily mean keeping things sanitary.  He knows what chemicals to use and not to use, how to Read more

Customer Understanding Leads to Relationship Growth - 2/13/24


We’ve worked with educational organizations at all grade levels over the years.  One special and unique characteristic about the staff who work in these organizations is that there’s a clear intent to know about the students as individuals, to focus on them rather than purely focusing on what’s delivered Read more

Define Customer Service Success Differently - 2/6/24


When I’m watching television, listening to the radio, or listening to a podcast, it’s always interesting when the topic moves to the question:  How can you be a success?  The speakers often discuss the process of becoming a success with the assumption that people believe success is defined by Read more

Care Enough to Give Them a Heads Up - 1/30/24


Nothing bad at all might happen.  Every day in the office could seem like every other day.  Sights and sounds and smells might continue to be the same.  But we have a lot of construction going on around our offices, and the building manager knows the type of work Read more

Be Better than AI Customer Service - 1/23/24


There was a recent CBS Sunday Morning Show story called: How artificial intelligence is revamping customer call centers. The journalist described how artificial intelligence is being used in customer service, and he noted the millions of pieces of information that can be processed in a matter of seconds. There are clear Read more

Let the Customer Decide Where to Share – 6/5/18

Posted on in Customer Service Tip of the Week Please leave a comment


When we work with clients on their Voice of the Customer strategy, there’s obviously a proactive research component included. And while many companies immediately consider a web survey as the sole source of customer feedback, when designing your Voice of the Customer strategy, first think about how your customers would prefer to share their feedback with you.

Some people prefer the face-to-face focus group because they can dialogue with others, and they prefer that personal interaction. Others prefer the web survey that is clickable and quantifiable, and it can be done any time of the day-of-week or time-of-day.

Some prefer the telephone, and not necessarily your calling them – which is becoming more and more rare – it’s also providing opportunity for them to dial into an anonymous conference call or to leave a voicemail for someone with their thoughts and opinions. Consider social media, where many are digitally engaged customers who spend a lot of their time and effort engaging companies through those more new-age methods.

Another benefit of gathering the Voice of the Customer using methods the customer would prefer to share information, is that your results can be biased if you don’t take that approach. What if 50% of your clientele who experience the organization onsite prefer to give the feedback onsite, but all you request is a web survey?

What if you prefer to use focus groups, but the majority of your customers don’t have the time nor inclination to drive somewhere, park, sit in a focus group, and then drive home? What if you preferred to get feedback via social media, but 80% of your clients are rarely on social media except as an observer of others?

To truly and accurately get the voice of your customer, develop a strategy that taps into the communication methods that your clients prefer most.

Let the customer decide where to share.

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Use Best Practice Survey Follow-up – 5/1/18

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Although most companies view customer satisfaction surveys as tools to gauge fan perceptions, we view them in a broader sense. It’s an opportunity to better know individual customers. It’s an opportunity to identify needs that you can address later. It’s a chance to tap it their ideas, and it’s a chance to have a positive touch point.

After the survey is completed by the respondent, the process should not be complete. You see, a customer satisfaction survey is also a relationship-builder. Here’s a follow-up e-mail received by a hotel survey respondent (the names have been changed):

Dear Ms. Jones,

Thank you for choosing the Hotel Essex in Downtown for your recent travels to Hockeyville.

Commitment to service and guest satisfaction is a main focus, and we are delighted to hear you enjoyed your stay. The pride and dedication our hotel team takes in providing exceptional customer service to our valued guests speaks strongly to our company’s core values, “good service at a fair price.”

Thank you again for taking the time to provide your feedback on the Guest Satisfaction Survey and we look forward to serving you again soon!

Sincerely,
Jennie Jackson
Guest Services Manager
Contact information followed

In this follow-up communication, the customer is thanked twice. There’s a reference to “Team,” and the company shares its core values and how they align to service. No sales offer. Not an epistle – just a brief “thanks.”

The company has just created a new “Last Impression” with the customer, and it’s a positive one.

Take a look at your research processes, and instead of viewing the process stopping with the customer when they complete the survey, view that as a pivot point to create an additional positive impression in your follow-up.

Build relationships with customers – even through your survey process.

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How Good Are You When Things Go Bad? – 8/9/16

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The more issues that your organization has to address, the more customer service matters. With most of the survey research that CSS performs for clients, we conduct additional correlation analyses to identify which aspects of the customer experience or relationship with the business tend to have the greatest impact on loyalty, willingness to recommend, or overall customer satisfaction.

With some of our clients – those that by the nature of their business have lots of difficult customer situations – there are interesting attributes that drive overall satisfaction. For one event-based client, whether the customer had traffic issues AFTER the event had a strong impact on overall customer satisfaction. In other words, if that last impression was bad, the overall event satisfaction went down; if the exiting process was quick/easy, the overall satisfaction was much higher.

Similarly, our surveys for a local government code enforcement agency continually note that when issues are resolved quickly/fairly and staff listen well to customers, overall satisfaction is much higher. When issue handling is poor, overall satisfaction is poor.

Oftentimes we think customer satisfaction is driven by the “WOW” or the exceptional experience, but with many industries overall customer satisfaction is determined by what transpires when things go bad.

To make sure you’re “good” when things go bad, here are quick summaries of comments from customers about what they want in an issue resolution experience:

  • Listen to and understand my perspective
  • Don’t rush me
  • Apologize
  • Own the resolution – even if you didn’t cause the problem
  • Provide direction – Where do I need to go? What do I need to do?
  • Respond quickly to my inquiries
  • Keep me up-to-date
  • Include me in decision-making, preferably with options
  • Resolve issues fairly.

Simple tips, but they are tips direct from customers that directly impact their overall satisfaction. Sometimes it is easy to deliver good customer service when things go well.

Make sure you’re good when things go bad.

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