The Business Key

Archive for the ‘Customer Service’ Category

Having worked in the customer service industry before, I know firsthand that this is not an easy job to do. Jobs that focus specifically on customer care and providing the highest quality service to each person require staff to undergo regular customer service training. This is to ensure that staffs are up-to-date when communicating with customers and continue work in keeping your existing customers.
Part of the customer service training is to experience customer interaction when at work. When thrown into the deep end of the service industry, you very quickly learn that people are approaching you for information or looking to buy a specific product. At which point you should be looking to deliver a good service and acting quickly upon their request. There are ways of going wrong in this simple exercise and below are a few pointers to customer service.
One of the key elements of customer service training is making good eye contact with the customer. Imagine if you were to walk into a shop with the intention of buying a product that does not appear to be on the shelves, the first thing you would do is approach a shop assistant for help in locating the item. Once you have approached the shop assistant you notice they immediately look away, even when you have asked them for help. At which point you feel that they are not listening to you.
This would anger me if I felt at any point I was seen to be a bother to someone who is quite clearly there to serve me as part of his or her job. How you portray yourself to a customer is important and works on the same principal as the saying ‘first impressions count’. The first impression you give to the customer must be welcoming, helpful, friendly and above all with eye contact. Making eye contact will ensure the customer that you are listening to them and acknowledging what they say.
Always greet the customer or make yourself approachable in a professional manner. Obviously, try not to overwhelm them and scare them away, but a warming smile and a decent response to their queries is a good starting point. During your customer service training, you will learn that communication, body language and tone of your voice are essential to good customer service. Bad customer service will mean the customer will not return and they in turn will tell others not to use your services.
The other most important thing to remember with good customer service is to maintain the customer’s attention and keep them informed of your actions. Think of your own experiences whereby you may have ordered something from the shop, taken the time to travel into the shop to collect the item and have found that it has not yet arrived. When you enquire about the item, you are told that it will arrive next week; when next week arrives, the item has still not turned up and again you are told the same thing.
The whole scenario leaves you feeling frustrated and confused. You should always inform the customer of exactly what is happening from the moment they have made their inquiry about their item; otherwise, you could potentially lose their custom. If at any point, a customer feels neglected or misinformed, they will cancel any procedures or transactions they have with you and move to a rival business. Always be apologetic, explaining why they have not received what they have been waiting for and if needed, offer an incentive or discount.
Part of the customer service training is to learn how to keep the customer satisfied, even in situations that is beyond your control. The worst thing you could do is to blame someone else or ‘pass the buck’ as then that will portray a lack in customer care. Trying to rush and resolve through the issue will only make the customer lose confidence in your service.
It is always a good idea to maintain a professional manner at all times and keep in mind the saying (no matter how much you disagree with this statement) ‘the customer is always right’. They are after all, keeping your business running and paying your wages. However, if the customer is getting abusive and you feel threatened by them, only then are you able to take the matter into the management’s hands or ask them to leave the premise.
With customer service training, you will learn the techniques of approaching a customer for potential sales, maintaining their interest and the right way of thanking them for their service with a view for them to return soon. Another key point to good customer service is to retain the number of customers and attract new customers. Once you have gained a reputation of being a business that provides good customer service, your existing customers will recommend your business to others.
By continuing, the training and maintaining the reputation will then become an easier effort for your team.

Providing great customer service puts you ahead of other competing businesses. It’s what your business needs to develop a loyal customer base.
When your competitors lose business because of poor customer service and their lost customers become your first time customers, it’s your customer service that will keep your new customers coming back. It will cause your business to rise above its competition.
The following tips will help you to satisfy your customers better, get more repeat business and realize higher profits. Use them to increase your sales and create a business that you can be proud of.
1. Have a strong customer service policy in place.
First of all, create a strategy for interacting with your customers that focuses on providing great customer service. Make it part of what your business is all about.
If you make customer service your top priority, your employees will know that excellent customer service is expected of them. They’ll provide better customer service and you’ll have more satisfied customers and repeat business.
Without a clear cut strategy, your employees may come up with their own ideas about what customers want and how they should be treated. Letting this happen is very dangerous to your profits. It can cause your competition to take customers away from you.

Come to think of it, there is no industry that does not involve customer service; reason why this course was created to help entrepreneurs and employees to understand customer service and its importance.

Customer service is a process whereby a representative of a company provides services or products to a customer in a satisfying manner.  Undergoing a course on customer service can drastically change the direction your business is going.  It increases customer satisfaction and in the long run yields customer loyalty.

Customer service can occur practically anywhere.  The following are just some of the examples:
Personal or face to face
Telephone
Order-taking
Complaint handling
Bills, payments, documents
Online and/or via email

This customer service course aims to give you a quick run-through on how to improve customer service skills.  First, one must understand that no amount of course on customer service can teach the following:
Attitude – having the right attitude is something innate, something that makes up the whole personality of the person.
Commitment – as an entrepreneur, you can’t force an employee to be committed to the job.  It must come from within.
Happiness – this trait depends on the person and when you are happy, everything else that’s good follows.  You have a positive disposition in life.

Copyright (c) 2008 Drew Stevens PhD

Finding Solutions that otherwise puzzle organizations

Organizations believe that they provide exactly what customers desire. Ask any firm and the Paretto Principle prevails. 80 percent of most organizations believe they deliver exemplary customer service. Ironically, less then 20 percent do. According to research by consultancy Bain and Company, only 8 percent of companies really deliver on customer service.

Our present environment exists with a gap in delivering service. There are numerous reasons for the gap, however, we believe two issues contribute to this gap, a) greed and b) the inability of customer relationships.

Greed Many statements by management consultant Peter Drucker are famous. However, in the book The Practice of Management, Drucker clearly states, “There is only one valid definition of business purpose: to create a customer.” Organizations today are trumped by two fundamental issues- competition and productivity. The focus is so acute that raising revenue, higher profits and increasing productivity all ignore the necessary myopia of customer concentration.