5 Traits You Cannot Teach In Customer Service

There are some character traits that cannot be taught in Customer Service..

If we could, we would because it would make the whole world a better place, not just Customer Service. We can't, therefore we work with people whom we believe to most exemplify these traits. Here are 5 you cannot teach.

1. Enthusiasm. We see it, we feel it and boy, do we wish everyone had it.

Many people don't though. It is often reflected in their faces when a request is made and reinforced with a sullen "just a moment" that does nothing to help us believe that we are about to receive a Service which we so desperately hope is better than what Mr. or Ms. Sullen face has just prefaced us with.

Enthusiasm is infectious, contagious and outright fun. It seems the Enthusiast is everywhere, ready and willing to do whatever it takes to make sure that we have a fantastic Customer Service experience. It is reflected by the pride they take in doing the job right, the care they take making sure everything is just so and the delivery of "Is there anything else I can do for you Mr. or Ms. Customer?"

The Enthusiast is nearly extinct these days. The victim of "Faster, More, Cheaper" Customer Service.

Are you exemplifying "Faster, More, Cheaper" or are you trying to grow Customer Service Enthusiasts?

2. Happiness. A feeling of pleasure. I have come to believe that Happiness is sometimes misused for the word Enlightened.

I know, now you think I am really off my meds. Let me ask you something. Have you ever met a person who was Happy? I mean really, really Happy? Really, when? Where do you think "Happy Hour" comes from? My point is that when people feel Happy, it leads to the ending of Happiness, or a state of Unhappiness. In other words, there is a limit.

I don't think there can be a limit to Enlightenment. Either way you think about it, it is not something you can teach. You can feel it. You can see it when another person really has it. You just can't teach someone to be Happy or Enlightened. They have to find it themselves.

3. Commitment. The feeling one has when one decides to do something no matter the cost or the journey. The ability to see it to the end. People who have commitment are not easily swayed. They keep putting one foot in front of the other, keeping their eye on the prize, the goal, the end.

Oh, they have trials and tribulations, and when you ask them about it, they shrug and say things like "That's the way we do it" or "It needed to be done." They have little concern or care for the thoughts of others who can't see the world through their eyes. They shrug and say "It's got to get done, and I'm the person to do it." You can't teach that.

4. Belief. The thought that someone feels completely, through and through that resonates deep inside them and tells them that they are on the right path. They don't need your beliefs, and are quite content to let you have yours.

Once it is felt between a group of people, it sings to everyone's heart in that group. A drumbeat that is felt by and played by all. It brings a natural power to a person that is unquenchable and unwavering. When all else is in doubt it is Belief that carries a person through.

I have experienced total Belief and a loss of Belief and I can tell you that when there is a loss of Belief, it literally can crush a soul. It's at these times that a person has to find that small spark, that ignites and starts the fire anew. You can't teach that.

5. Attitude. Among all, I really want to have the ability to teach Attitude. You could point out to someone what Attitude looks like and say things like "He/She has a great Attitude, you would do well to be like this" and the person would say "Oh, I see. No problem. Attitude is adjusted to maximum. Thanks." And it would be.

Or say something like "Study this book, read chapters 3 and 4, answer the questions at the end of the chapters and you will have the Attitude you need to make it through life." Right. The world would be a much more interesting place if all of our Attitudes where in sync and working towards a common goal.

" Imagine," as someone once said. You can't teach Attitude in Customer Service.

If you are trying to teach one of these to your personnel in the hope that they will morph in Customer Service Professionals, forget it. You have a better chance of seeing Santa Claus, The Tooth Fairy and The Easter Bunny playing ball on your front lawn one morning.

Concentrate on finding those people who best demonstrate these traits.

Help them grow their own Enthusiasm, Happiness, Commitment, Belief and Attitude. You will be much happier with the results. (Or Enlightened).

This article is written with the hope that you do something with the thoughts and ideas presented here. Take action and make a difference.

About the Author Leonard Buchholz is a Certified Trainer, Speaker and Author. Seminars include subjects like Customer Service, Management and Communications. Known for "High Touch" seminars, participants have takeaways that include 3 immediate goals and long term learning.

3 Reasons Why Companies Aren't Developing Outstanding Customer Service

Developing outstanding customer service is doable for any size business - so why is it not happening?

As a business coach I talk to a wide range of business leaders, owners and entrepreneurs. They all talk about the importance of customer service to their organization. Yadda yadda yadda. Frankly, if all the people walked the talk surrounding customer service today, the consumer would be looking at businesses a whole different way.

If you were to generalize and say "who gets it", my vote would be the micro or small business owner. There are a couple of reasons for this, but the bottom line is that each and every customer has a significant

impact on their business and the business owner understands and appreciates that fact. As business grows, the owner loses that connection and it "appears" that losing an individual customer (unless it's a big one) just doesn't have the same impact.

Yet losing any customers should not be acceptable. Statistics show it will cost your business about 5 times more to replace that customer than to retain the original. Studies also show long term clients are less hassle and spend more. Why would it be ok to let them go?

So why do companies not have (or lose) that focus on providing Outstanding Customer Service?

The first reason that infests organizations is the DESS Syndrome. DESS stands for that Darned Excel Spreadsheet. Managers are accountable today, whether executive or front line based on their "numbers". You will raise or fall, be promoted or let go, receive bonuses, raises, etc. all based on how your numbers look on the DESS. Sure it's a bit more complicated, but honestly not much.

The Customer Service challenge stems from the fact that bad or even just ok Customer Service problems don't easily appear on any spreadsheet. They are there, but you have to dig and evaluate the numbers. Things like refunds, customer retention, problems with bill collecting, and so on are in the numbers, but not directly tied toward. And since it's difficult to look at those numbers, it becomes difficult to maintain the focus.

The second reason we have problems Developing Outstanding Customer Service is how we DO evaluate it which is the customer satisfaction surveys. Most studies show that surveys that ask for Very Dissatisfied/Dissatisfied/Neutral/Satisfied/Very Satisfied replies average in the Satisfied, maybe slightly higher range.

But honestly, what truly happened when you said you were Satisfied with service? Think about how you feel if you were satisfied with the service. It's not much. We usually think that meant the service was okay or honestly that we were satisfied because while they didn't do anything memorable, they didn't screw up either! And that's our standard? Companies revel in their customer satisfaction scores! Yet, if everyone is saying that basically the business was just ok, what does that mean? What it doesn't mean any particular loyalty. What it doesn't mean is when it's time to order again, that they will return to you. The bottom line is that striving for customer satisfaction sets a pretty low bar for any business.

The third reason businesses have difficulty providing Outstanding Customer Service is that it has a tendency of being the "flavor of the month". Usually something happens to draw everyone's attention. Speeches are made, consultants may be hired, a workshop is held to emphasize the importance of Customer Service for the organization.

And then the band stops playing, the consultants go home, the managers move on to the next "flavor of the month". While customer service needs to be a consistent focus, companies don't focus on it consistently!

So what needs to be done to having an organization committed to Developing Outstanding Customer Service?

Resolving reason 3 is the first thing that needs to be done. The intelligent business has to understand that Developing Outstanding Customer Service needs to be a core value of their business. A core value that is consistently identified, understood and achieved from the absolute top level of the organization throughout the organization. It is more than slogans on the wall and words in the marketing brochure. It is not the responsibility of just the people in front of customers, it is everyone's responsibility.

The next thing for an organization is to create a real measurable way to judge your performance. A great way of looking at the customer is a book by Red Reichheld called The Ultimate Question showing a viable way to categorize and measure your customers and your performance.

Customer Service is probably the oddest business challenges out there today. Everybody knows good service (and bad) when they see it, yet poor or mediocre service is epidemic. Everybody knows the costs of losing or non-returning customers, yet the money most businesses spend on bettering customer service is incredibly small. It is the single largest marketing phrase (we believe in customer service!), yet it rarely comes true.

Developing Outstanding Customer Service is doable for any size business. You just need to look at industry leaders and see that happening. But it is an awareness, an understanding and a commitment that needs to be made every single day, from every single employee of your organization.

About the Author

Terry Bass, of CHADONS Resources is a business coach supporting businesses that wish to reach a higher level of success. Terry coaches. Terry is the founder of the DOCS 4 Program, which stands for "Developing Outstanding Customer Service for" which brings real world customer service solutions to anyones business.

Building Loyalty - 5 Steps to Succeeding in Difficult Times

Consistently deliver a truly awesome customer experience each
and every day..

Let's face it, more and more people are worried about the current
economic conditions and how they will be impacted. Comments such
as, "Our inquiries have really dropped off," "People are sure taking a
long time to make buying decisions," "Our customers are demanding
more from us or leaving," "Pricing pressures are becoming the
norm," "Far more "shoppers" than buyers," "It costs a lot more to
find new customers these days," "Customers are defecting at all time
high rates," along with many other similar and related comments.

Now, more than ever, is your time to Be Disruptive, Build Loyalty
and Change the Game so you not only survive, but thrive in the
future! This is not the time to hunker down and hope the storm
blows over quickly - it is here for the foreseeable future. What are
you going to do to Take Advantage of it and come out stronger when
the growth cycle kicks in again? What are you going to change from
what you are doing today to give you different results? Most look for
ways to cut the fat out of the organization and improve processes to
squeeze every dime out of operations - certainly something to
consider. However, while this cost-cutting effort is going on, what
are you doing to focus on the group that actually pays you money -
the customer? How are you capturing more revenue so you can
increase profitability and dominate your competition?

We recently conducted our own informal research to find out what
companies are doing to attack this situation and move themselves to
the head of the pack - or why they weren't. We began by asking a
number of business owners and executives in a variety of
organizations to give us their thoughts on these same questions. We
hoped to learn some new ideas in addition to validating or modifying
our own hypothesis about what we were seeing. The comments and
discussions were very interesting and confirmed one thing - we were
"dead on target" with our hypothesis. However, one question kept
coming up in almost every conversation we had, "How can we beat
our competitors and win more share of wallet from our customers?"
Stay tuned..

There is no question we are experiencing some economic challenges
today - most indicators are telling this story. And even though no
one wants to talk about the "R" word, it may very well be here or
looming in the near future. Many businesses are seeing decreases in
sales and getting more pressure to cut their prices to compete for
the same customers. One executive we talked with asked, "How can
you build loyalty during these times when customers are looking for
more services than they did before and at a lower price?" Great
question. The answer I gave him wasn't the one I think he expected
to hear. I said to him, "Be Disruptive and Build Loyalty when
everyone else is hunkering down. There are great opportunities in
these times if you act "proactively" instead of "reactively." If you
haven't built a following of loyal customers before now, begin
immediately and be blatant about it. This will move you ahead of
your competitors today and help ensure you have them when times
get better. Customers (and employees) still want and organization to
deliver a consistent, repeatable experience and to keep their
promises - that still reigns above price." He agreed.

The other word we kept hearing in our discussions was the "C" word
- "commodity." As businesses are being squeezed on price, their
customer base is defecting to their competitors. If they hadn't
already built an experience that created loyalty, along with the
products and services to differentiate themselves, they ended up
drifting toward the commodity space. This is where customers see
little, if any, differentiation between businesses and begin to move
toward the lowest price point - resulting in no distinction or value
for the experience. Once customers believe you are a commodity,
the only way to compete is to lower your prices - creating a
downward cycle turning your product or service into a commodity.
This is absolutely not where you want to head unless you have a
model that always wins on price.

For example, one of our clients, a software development firm, was
seeing exactly the same picture - pressure on price and no clear
differentiation. Upon further investigation, we found the reasons
were lack of consistency in the experience and focusing on the
"wrong" promises. The customer told us many times, "If they could
just keep two or three of their promises all the time we would give
them more exclusivity and more opportunities." You can read more
about them on our website under Case Studies.

Our research shows that companies have the best chance of
surviving, and even flourishing during tougher economic times,
when they have more Loyal Customers than their competition. While
this may seem intuitive, it is amazing how few have really actively
focused on this effort. The best companies have invested the time
and resources to build Trusted, Loyal Relationships with their
customers. As the economy slows, customers gravitate to these
companies because they know they will receive a consistent and
repeatable experience. These companies don't sit back and relax,
they continue to build from the powerful vantage point they already
have over their competitors. They are in the enviable position of
being on top and controlling the experience while their competitors
spend extra dollars and resources to try and win these customers
away. A case in point is Southwest Airlines. They were still very
successful, even during the attacks of 9-11 when air travel dropped
off sharply, and remained profitable (unlike the other airlines). Why?
Because they had done what was necessary to build a loyal customer
base and capitalized on supporting them during this difficult time.

With what we have seen and heard, we wanted to share a 5 Step
process we believe can help businesses thrive in the current
economy and well into the future. These Steps are a compilation of
both the responses we received from our research and our own
experience. There is no "magic pill," but what we can give you is a
specific recipe of proven Steps you can take to build Loyalty quickly
and rise to the top of the list with your customers. These Steps
aren't difficult to grasp but will take some effort to execute so you
can Consistently deliver a Truly Awesome Customer Experience each
and every day and create your own list of loyal customers.

Here are the 5 Steps..

1. Start by truly understanding your client base. Get some analytics
about your customer so you can truly understand the revenue and
profitability of your customers. Analyze where the revenue is coming
from, by segment and by category. See which customers, products
and services drive the majority of sales. Find out who is most
profitable for you today, even if it is only at the gross margin level.
Truly "understand" where your revenue and profits are coming from
in your customer base. This will help feed the other Steps going
forward.

2. Now ask some tough questions. Are we in alignment between
what we are doing operationally and how this supports our most
profitable customers? Are we focused on different customer
segments because of economics or some other reason? Are these the
markets we should be in both short term and longer term? What do
the competitors look like in each of these segments? Should we
focus on a different segment due to lack of competition and
opportunity? Ask tough questions of your management team, based
on analytics, to truly understand where opportunities exist. This Step
is all about understanding your customer and the competitive
landscape. Time spent here will help you focus for Step 3.

3. Now find out what is going on externally with your customers -
the experience you deliver. Go out and get some good information
directly from your customer so you know what experience would
differentiate you from your competitors. This can't be wimpy
information either. It has to be fresh, unfiltered and from their own
voice to give you what you need. You can waste a lot of time and
money on meaningless survey's and research. Resist doing what you
have always done in the past and go get the "good stuff" directly
from your customer. You are looking for what they believe are the
"loyalty factors" and "promises" that will differentiate you. Use an
outside firm since there isn't time to waste and the customer usually
gives deeper information to someone not associated with your
organization. This can happen quicker than you might think. Another
example, when we worked with a law firm (case study is also on our
website) they realized they were not focusing on anything that
differentiated them. They needed this input to turn the ship around.

4. Now focus on implementation and retention. Since you now know
which customers have the greatest profitability and what it would
take to move them to becoming "Loyalists," you are ready to build
and implement the "truly awesome" customer experience. Identify
changes you can, and need, to make in the processes of your
organization to ensure the consistent and repetitive delivery of the
experience - systematic and throughout the organization. In our
book, "Creating and Delivering Totally Awesome Customer
Experiences," we stated, "Eliminate the Random Acts of Excellence
and Chaos and you can deliver a consistent and repeatable
experience." This means providing everyone in your organization the
information and tools to understand exactly how to deliver this
experience the same way every day. Customers thrive on
consistency.

5. Start delivering the new experience, communicate it and then
measure the results. Communicate to your customer what you are
doing. They will appreciate you focusing on them and Changing the
Game in the experience. Build your messaging around the changes
you are making and what you are delivering. Build your "Brand
Promise" around the "loyalty factors" and "promises" your customer
wants. Integrate this into everything you do and say and do it over
and over and over again. This demonstrates consistency and avoids
the impression of "flavor of the month." This is who you are and
what you stand for and believe in. Repeating the message and
keeping your promises builds Trust, which leads to Loyalty and
Retention.

Now you have a proven 5 Step recipe for taking your organization
into a leading position. Even if you are, or have been, trending
downward because of the economic times it is not too late to start.
Focus on understanding and building the Promises and Loyalty
Drivers into the customer experience immediately and you can turn
things around faster than you might think.

Even if you only begin to build some loyalty to survive today, when
the economy turns upward you will reap more benefits than ever
before with a base of loyal customers to build upon. Remember,
Loyalty is an "earned" state and not a given. If you want to build
loyalty now and in the future, don't just window dress it. Rally
around it and make lasting changes - your customer will notice.
Start today. Be Disruptive, Bold and take control and you will find
yourself ahead of your competitors and beating them today and
tomorrow.

About the AuthorBlaine Millet is the co-author of the leading edge book, "Creating
and Delivering Totally Awesome Customer Experiences." He also has
over 25 years experience working with companies in the areas of
strategy, customer experiences/loyalty, business operations, sales
and management.

Do You Use Customer Satisfaction Surveys?

Ideas and research for making the most of customer satisfaction surveys..

Do you have customer satisfaction surveys in place? If you don't, we highly recommend that you do. In a recent report from Benchmark Portal, the top 3 post-call survey methods were:

1) Live telephone interviews 33.7%

2) Post-call IVR surveys 23.8%

3) Email surveys 15.8%

The significant findings as a result of this report include:

26.1% do post call surveys up from 19.6% in 2006

17.4% do not conduct any post call surveys, down from 25.8% in 2006

26% conducted surveys immediately after the call up over 50% from 2006

70.4% shared the survey reports with top management

63.4% agreed that agent training had a major impact on caller satisfaction

When asked when do you conduct your survey, the answers were:

Immediately after the call 26.0%

More than 10 days after 17.3%

2 day or less 14.4%

2-5 days 13.5%

5-10 days 7.7%

We don't survey 17.4%

The significant question for me was: Based on customer satisfaction survey inputs, your organization made the following operational improvements:

And the top 2 were:

Added, changed or improved training for agents 25.2%

Increased First Call Resolution 19.3%

When asked whether improvements to training programs resulted in improved caller satisfaction, 63.4% agreed with the statement.

In a survey of over 2000 senior human resource executives (Novations Group), 2 out of 3 organizations are experiencing growing demand for customer service training.

Do you survey your customers?

And then if you do, do you use that information to kick your customer service up a notch? I hope the answer to both of these questions is a big resounding 'yes.'

This goes back to previous articles on asking your customer. If you want to know how you are doing as a company; if you want to know how your customer service is being perceived; then ask your customer. Don't rely solely on metrics, but rather, remember that the best measure of how you are doing is available to you in your customer.

Our recommendation is for post call surveys to be within 2 days of the call. Beyond that it is a mere memory and people could tell you what you want to hear rather than what is true for them.

If you were to ask me a week later - unless it was a truly bad call experience - I would answer yes quickly to get you off the phone and I might not be accurate in my responses. Of course, if it were a bad experience, I probably would take the time to give feedback.

However, if you are going to take the time to do post call surveys, use the information to:

- Upgrade, change, improve your agent training

- Increase your first call resolution

- Change your IVR or skill based routing

- Empower your agents to do more without requiring a supervisor's approval

- Decrease wait time

- Share the information with management and all other touch points

In the Purdue University database of contact enters, only 61% report that they have a formal method for collecting caller satisfaction. More important, of those centers that collect customer information, only 33% of them use the information to influence change in the contact center, and even fewer use information to influence other areas in the organization.

In today's competitive marketplace, what distinguishes one company from another is its relationship with the customer. And that's a 'people' responsibility, not technology or process.

Who has that responsibility? Each and every person from your front line agent to your CEO--anyone and everyone who has interaction with a customer, current, potential, or future.

About the Author Rosanne D'Ausilio, Ph.D., is an industrial psychologist, consultant, master trainer, best selling author, executive coach, customer service expert, and President of Human Technologies Global, Inc.

You Are The Leader - Customer Excellence Begins With You

Your organization is like an engine - and you are the switch that can ignite excellence..

In today’s competitive marketplace, extending excellent customer service is essential to the survival of any business. I hope by now most of us understand the importance of taking care of the customer and exceeding their expectations.

If some of you are like me, you spent your leisure time reading books like “Raving Fans” by Ken Blanchard and Sheldon Bowles, or “In Search of Excellence” by Tom Peters. I read these books and took them as gospel because they offer sound principles for creating a vision of what excellent customer service should look like.

I truly believe that these books and a few others really help us to delve into the principles for taking care of the people and maintain our customer’s loyalty.

We have great examples of companies that live by the customer loyalty principle by constantly striving to be on the cutting edge of services and products. Such companies that come to mind are Starbucks, Nordstrom, The Four Seasons, and Virgin Atlantic. These are companies who set the mark for creative and enlightened organizations that are always finding ways to make the customer say “wow”. Consumers brag to others about the services they receive at these customer centered organizations and therefore create a word of mouth buzz that creates exponential growth and success.

As managers you have probably tried to instil certain campaigns or slogans at your company. You made sure your employees understood and practiced the following procedures:

- Greeting the guest with a smile and a salutation.
- Looking for the “moment of truth”, the opportunity to make an impression on your customer with each interaction.
- Soliciting feedback from the guest or customer.
- Employee empowerment.
- Taking care of the “internal customer” (teamwork)

The list goes on, but in our organizations we have all tried to instil the above initiatives at one time or another. If your organization is a progressive one, then many of the above initiatives are common practice and part of the expected norm. By the way, have you ever walked into one of the large video store franchises? You walk through the familiar doors in search of the newest “Rambo” movie on the way you plan to drop off your last rental – “P.S. – I love You” (My wife made my rent). As you walk in the door, you are hit with “hello” from two or three employees. Rather than be impressed by their great service you are actually annoyed by their forced salutation. They are not sincere and it shows. Some executive at that company decided long ago that all of the video store employees will greet the guest as they walk in the door despite if the employee is across the room or not. Forget about greeting me from across the room as I walk in the door. Instead, try not to ignore me the rest of the time I am in the store. Say “Hello” to me when we are face to face or passing in the aisles. Give me an opinion about a movie that I should see or ask me if I found everything ok. The point is that when something seems scripted or forced then it is not going to work on the customer, instead it will cheapen the customer experience. “Do you want to supersize that?”

Ok! We all know the importance of customer loyalty because it costs less to get a customer to come back then to create a new one. We all know that the customer is king because they pay our bills and pay checks. We all know that our employees have to be friendly and have good attitudes or the customers won’t come back. We all know that an unsatisfied customer will tell far more people than a happy customer. So how do we make our employees follow these initiatives and constantly work toward improving their services? It is easy. You, be a good leader. Huh? “No, it’s the employees fault.” “It’s hard to find good people now.” I say B.S. (Bogus Sandwich).

Some of us know that the philosophy of customer loyalty and constant improvement were studied, researched and taught by the American statistician, Dr W Edwards Deming. His teachings have been carried out by such companies as Sony, Fuji, Toyota, Honda and a multitude of others. In fact every year Japan still honours the most innovative or successful company with the Deming Award. Deming’s teachings were so simple yet they are still some of the most powerful management philosophies today which Deming referred to as “profound knowledge”. Some of the points from his 14 point list from his book “Out of the Crisis” are:

- Create constancy of purpose toward improvement of product and service, with the aim to become competitive and to stay in business, and to provide jobs.

- Improve constantly and forever the system of production and service, to improve quality and productivity, and thus constantly decrease costs

- Institute training on the job

- Institute leadership. The aim of supervision should be to help people and machines and gadgets to do a better job. Supervision of management is in need of an overhaul, as well as supervision of production workers

- Drive out fear, so that everyone may work effectively for the company.

- Break down barriers between departments. People in research, design, sales, and production must work as a team, to foresee problems of production and in use that may be encountered with the product or service.

- Institute a vigorous program of education and self-improvement

- Put everybody in the company to work to accomplish the transformation. The transformation is everybody's job.

As you can see, the father of quality and improvement says that quality begins in the boardroom with the leaders and managers. This especially counts for service companies. Leaders, owners, and manager make the rules and the procedures. They can create the empowerment in the employee or tie their hands and have them afraid to make a decision. They are the ones that decide how much should be spent on training and what objectives are important. The owners are the ones that decide if they are going to share part of the profits with the employee and make them feel like part of the company.

The leaders and owners are the ones that decide how they are going to treat the employees on their interactions. Are they going to set goals and work toward helping the employee to achieve the goal or are they going to leave them alone and just dump all over them when the employee does something wrong? The leaders decide if an employee’s or customer’s idea will be implemented or not. So you can keep blaming the line employee for the bad customer service or you can take a deep look at the root cause of it all, leadership and owners.

We want our people to treat our customers with warmth and respect. How do we treat our people? We want our people to constantly improve their work standards and output. Do we provide the on-going training and listen to their feedback? We want our people to be able to serve the customer to the fullest without making them wait and go through hoops. Are they afraid to try anything without your approval because they know if they screw up you will be all over them? Look at yourself and see.

Your store, restaurant, factory or office is like an engine. Then you the leader are the ignition switch. Your people are the spark plugs, pistons and other moving parts of the engine. If the spark (behaviour) you provide is weak or surges then the engine will sputter. Without the oil (training, goals, feedback, and support), then the engine will quickly burn and seize up. The parts of the engine all have their function but without the spark, the engine will never run. Now go take a look at yourself, your other managers and the system itself. Can you improve something to ignite maximum performance from your employees and create customer loyalty? Always!

References:

Raving Fans: A Revolutionary Approach to Customer Service by Ken Blanchard, Sheldon Bowles, Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers. Date: 1993.

Out of Crisis: Dr W Edwards Deming, 1982 & 1986, Out of the crisis: quality, productivity and competitive position, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge

In Search of Excellence: by Thomas J. Peters, Tom Peters 2004 - Business & Economics Harper Business Essentials.

About the Author

Donn Kirst is a customer loyalty and leadership trainer based out of Las Vegas, Nevada. Donn has spent the last 16 years of his life studying from the masters of personal development, leadership, and customer loyalty. In addition he loves to learn from hospitality organizations that “wow” the customers.

6 Reasons Why Complaining Customers are Golden

We don't always think of customer complaints as opportunities, but that's just what they are..

It has probably happened to you. You get an email or even a phone call from someone who is upset or unhappy with this or that about your business. Most of us don’t really care to deal with whiners or complainers, but, if you’ll just take a deep breath and take some time to think about it, many times they offer you some solid insight into your business that you would not have seen. If you just react to their complaint without taking the position that their concern might be legitimate, you will lose many valuable insights and may very likely lose a customer.

After all, they are on the receiving end of your business, and you can’t disregard this. Whether they are just irritated or are really upset for some reason, you need to be prepared for how to respond. Take a deep breath and keep the following in mind the next time you have a run-in with a disgruntled or upset customer.

1. They often identify potential problem areas.

The cause of most customer complaints is failed expectations. It could have been something you said, or failed to say. It could have been something you did or didn’t do. Or maybe your customer is simply confused. Whatever the case, customers are usually unhappy because they expected something from you that didn’t occur, and from their perspective, needs to be remedied. If the cause of their dissatisfaction is reasonable, guess what? They just helped you see something you missed, and now you can take care of it and make your business even better. And that is a blessing. It’s best to make sure you make things right by giving your customer what they expected (if it is reasonable) and then do something else – give an extra gift of value to your customer and a genuine thank you for bringing it to your attention. Their jaw will usually hit the floor. You would be absolutely amazed at how this will turn even the most dissatisfied complainer into an extremely loyal and perhaps even a lifetime (and happy) customer.

2. The complaining customer represents others who won’t say a word.

If you have a customer who makes a complaint about something related to your business, you should assume the there are others who probably had the same issue, but never said a word to you. It’s a well-established fact that the majority of your customers generally won’t utter a peep. They typically prefer to avoid confrontation, and so they will just leave and start doing business with one of your competitors. You want to avoid this like the plague. The best way to do that is to make sure you ask your customers regularly for their candid feedback. And then be sure to make adjustments and let them know what you did.

3. A complaint is often a wake-up call for what your customers really need.

It’s one thing for you to figure out what you think your customers need, but it’s even better when they tell you. Since most customer complaints are based on failed expectations, a complaint is an excellent opportunity to assess how well you are actually meeting the needs of your customers. If more than one customer makes the same suggestion or complaint, guess what? That’s a clue you probably should take a closer look at an issue. You need to figure out if you need to tweak your sales message, your product or service, or the way you provide service and support. Whatever it is, its bound to improve your business because you will be responding to the stated needs of your customers.

4. When they are done complaining, they will talk with others.

It’s so important to remember that the way you handle a customer complaint is not the end of the matter! In fact, it’s actually much closer to the beginning. A complaint is a tremendous opportunity if you handle the situation tactfully. This is because if you listen and respond to a complaint by fixing what was wrong, and send your customer off with a gift and a thank you – they will tell at least 10 other people about their experience. That’s called word of mouth advertising – the most powerful form of advertising on the planet – and that’s where your opportunity lies. And though it may not result in more customers for you, it just might – and in any event, it sure can’t hurt. You need to keep in mind that this door swings both ways. If you fail to resolve a complaint, they will talk with even MORE people about it! This can cause great damage to your online reputation – a mortal blow to the trust you seek to cultivate with your customers and prospects, which, by the way, is the most important online commodity you have.

5. Your customer is far more important to your business than a prospect.

With all the emphasis most online business owners put into marketing, it’s easy to overlook this simple fact. A focus on marketing can be a distraction
from investing more time on and with your customers. If you treat a complaining customer with respect, tact, care, and genuine understanding – you might wind up keeping them in the end – especially if they believe that their concerns are appreciated and will be corrected immediately. Don’t forget, it’s FAR less expensive (both financially and in many other ways) to keep an existing customer than it is to find a new one. You might even want to follow up and tell your customer what actions you intend to take as a result of their complaint or suggestion. And then be sure to follow-up with them again and tell them what you actually did. If they see that kind of response from you, what will they think? They will know you value their feedback – and for many customers – that makes all the difference – even if you fail to remedy the issue completely. Keep in mind that ANY time you have an opportunity to connect in a positive way by giving a customer positive news is great for your business, and puts them in a better frame of mind towards you - which means they will be more likely to think of you the next time they need a solution you have to offer. Because you’ve effectively communicated that you are responsive to their needs.

6. Fixing complaints removes excuses to not buy from you.

If you invest the time and energy to eliminate the cause(s) of failed expectations your customers come up with, guess what you’ve just done? You’ve just taken away more roadblocks that might otherwise prevent them from buying from you. So, my motto is, I want to hear all about it when my customers are unhappy! Because the more I hear, the more I can take action to demonstrate that what they want is important to me. Working to eliminate obstacles on their behalf causes my customers to see me as one of their solution providers – and ultimately, their best choice.

About the Author

Kevin Wirth © 2005-8 - all rights reserved worldwide. Kevin Wirth is the owner of KEVS-KORNER ezine, a free online newsletter offering articles, tips, resources, and insight on over 150 different marketing tactics. He is bringing together a growing community where you can work with others to create and market products online

How to Optimise Customer Feedback From Numerous Sources

Can't see the wood for the trees? Learn how to identify and develop key customer messages..

For an increasing number of companies today a major challenge is to identify the key customer messages from a wide range of sources and then look to develop these messages into an overall customer story. It is all too easy for the greater message to become hidden by the latest single piece of customer knowledge.

This challenge of being able to ‘see the wood for the trees’ will become increasingly important as:

1. There is increasing pressure to maximise the ROI from market research budgets by gaining the maximum level of insight

2. Multi-channel customer interfaces lead to multi-channel customer feedback, with an increasing need for consolidation and comparison

3. Companies look increasingly to differentiate themselves on the customer experience rather than price

4. The customer strategy needs to be developed based upon customer needs data, both from internal and external sources

5. The success of the rollout of the customer strategy needs to be measured from both the customers’ viewpoint and internal data

So potentially what are the data sources to be used by companies?
It is not only the Market Research or Market Insight team that will generate customer feedback but a whole host of other teams (some intentionally, some not).

• Customer complaints data – some of which will be captured centrally and recorded, other complaints may be received at a more local level and not formally recorded

• Employee feedback, both in terms of an employee satisfaction programme, and in terms of gaining employee views about specific customer experiences e.g. complaints, refunds etc

• Sales / Account Management reviews

• Win / Loss reviews

• Contact -centre logging reasons for contact

• Shop floor staff feedback on what customers talk to them about

• Qualitative and Quantitative market research commissioned by departments other than the research team

• Transactional data from point of sale

• Customer Loyalty programme data

• Omnibus surveys

• Industry surveys

• Sales figures

• Product returns

• Customer event feedback

• Online customer forums
• Blogs

This list is almost endless!

Having obtained the data sources, what are the challenges that are likely to be faced?

With more than one team of people gathering customer feedback it is possible that there will be a lack of consistency, and therefore comparability of data. For example, any of the following could be key issues when examining multiple data sources:

• Definitions of customer segments / groups

• Sample size variation and comparability

• Timing, both in terms of possibly conflicting with each other, or being too far apart and therefore difficult to compare

• One-off piece of research versus ongoing data collection

• The data from another exercise as by-product (and therefore less attention was paid to its potential ongoing value to the business)

• Scales used within surveys are not compatible

So how do we solve the problem?

Clearly every company is unique in what it captures and therefore we cannot in this short article give precise answers in achieving this global view of customers’ experience with your organisation. What we can do though is provide some stepping stones (or should that be a chain saw to remove some of those trees!).

1. Identify a single person, or small team that is responsible for defining your customer strategy. This needs to be built around the customer knowledge you have to date, and what will be required in the future. It may be worth initially considering the use of an external independent person to ensure that there is a totally unbiased view of data captured to date. It will also ensure that people’s “day jobs” can be maintained whilst this review of available data takes place.

2. Proactively go out to other teams who have a customer interface and identify what data they may have on customer feedback. Offer to provide them with a summary of all of the data that you collect from this exercise. This community of data providers will prove valuable not only in the future in providing additional data, but are likely to also have a key role to play in executing the customer strategy.

3. Before reviewing all of the captured data develop a framework showing what questions need answering and therefore what data would ideally be available.

4. It may be worth considering developing different frameworks for different customer groups. Clearly you need to start with the most important customer group.

5. Prioritise the available identified data sources against this framework, and be prepared to discard some as irrelevant, out of date etc. Be prepared to remove some of the customer data sources - just because it is available does not make it valuable!

6. Review the remaining data sources and note key points that come from each piece of research

7. Look to identify common themes that start to become unearthed as you review the data sources. Note: for other people the strength of the argument will be much stronger if you have multiple sources confirming the same point. These common themes will form the overall story, and therefore the overall customer strategy. How that evolves will clearly be very different for each organisation.

8. Carefully track the data sources as you develop the overall story as people will rightly ask you where it came from, and may ask for additional information from the same source.

9. Conclude the key messages and associated actions, with references back to the relevant data sources.

10. Recommend which data sources should be used to track the impact of the customer strategy, and which could possibly be removed.

About the Author Colin Bates founded Customer Champions in 1999 as an agency focused on supporting clients to convert a strategic intent of being customer-led into a practical and profitable reality. With over 25 years of marketing experience, the last 15 of which have been focused on improving the customers' experience, he is passionate about representing the customers viewpoint within client organisations. His aim is to ensure that programmes are developed that are not only customer focussed, but are profitable for both his clients, and their customers. The approach is to build upon a clients' customer knowledge and provide practical tools that support profitable and meaningful action plans.

Customer Satisfaction: What Yardstick Do You Choose?

When considering your performance, consider the yardsticks of your Customers..

I used to frequently facilitate a five day workshop. As a part of the process for this workshop, we had a Thursday night dinner where all of the participants got together and celebrated the week - even though there were a few more hours of workshop remaining.

When the workshop took place near our home, my wife often attended this dinner. Participants wanted to meet her, and I had been so busy with the workshop all week that it was nice, even if there were 20 other people in the room, to have dinner with her.

One night after this event, Lori asked me what seemed to be a very strange question, "Have you spent your week with the same people I met tonight?" Not knowing why she was asking such a cryptic question, I answered, "Yes, of course, why do you ask?"

She explained. "All week you have been telling me how many things haven't gone well during this workshop; what you want to fix next time, and that you are disappointed in your performance. And then I spend an evening with a group that is laughing and telling me, almost to a person, how this is the best workshop they've ever attended. These people are excited about the prospects of going back to work and putting these ideas to work. So something doesn't seem to match up between your description, and theirs."

I looked at her, not really knowing what to say.

Then she went on, saying, "This isn't the first time I've experienced this at this dinner. You tell me all week what you want to change, but then the group is always excited, and thoroughly delighted with their experience. I think you need to recognize that there are two yardsticks that you can use to measure your performance - yours and your Customers."

She was right, of course.

I loved the work I was doing in those workshops. Yet, I was always hard on myself, recognizing the things I wanted to tweak, fix, and change to make it even better. Even though I knew people were benefiting from the workshop, and even enjoying it, that wasn't my focus. My focus was on making the experience better in the future.

It wasn't until Lori pointed it out so insightfully that I really realized that I was measuring my performance on a yardstick of a continually expanding length.

As I thought about her advice and the metaphor of the two yardsticks in the weeks, months, and even years that followed, I realized that her advice applied to many more people than just me, and that it was actually a profound truth:
When assessing your performance, consider both yardsticks - yours and your Customer's.

In the story I shared, I wasn't recognizing my success. Having a high benchmark to define success helped me continue improving, but it also kept me from realizing a balanced view of the situation. I already had delighted Customers. Perhaps this is your situation, or perhaps the situation is reversed - by your yardstick things are fine, while your Customers are less than thrilled.

So where are you - and where is your organization - on the two yardsticks with your work at this moment?

The concept of the multiple yardsticks is valuable no matter what you do or who your Customer's are. Both yardsticks are valuable, and both are necessary. Make sure to think about and recognize your results from both perspectives, and, most importantly, use both perspectives as you plan future events and your ongoing improvement.

Potential Pointer: When considering your performance, consider more than your personal perspective - you must consider the yardsticks of others as well - especially your Customers.

About the Author

Kevin Eikenberry is Chief Potential Officer of The Kevin Eikenberry Group, a company that helps Clients reach their potential through training, consulting and speaking services.

The Most Important Customer Service Question

If marketing is the fuel for your business then customer service is the octane..

The higher the octane, the better your business will run. Customer service is actually part of the marketing process. It affects word of mouth marketing, it affects your credibility and reputation and excellent customer service helps to establish you as a brand.

So what is the most important customer service question you can ask yourself? What is a business owner’s most important customer service metric? Will your customers recommend your products or services to someone else?


Here’s why this question is so important:

Recommendations of your product or services to friends and family demonstrate confidence in a quality product or service. This is the utmost
compliment to your business. When you offer a superior product or service the only place you can go is up.

Word of mouth marketing is one of the best, most reliable and cost effective forms of marketing available. There really is nothing better than the testimonial or endorsement of one customer to another. Not only does it help to establish a pattern of loyalty and purchasing behavior it reinforces any buying decision. Think about the products or services you endorse. Once you’ve told someone how wonderful the product or service is, you’re more inclined to continue using that product or service simply because you said you do. And if a product or service has been recommended to you that recommendation weighs more heavily than any sales content can ever do. As a business owner, this type of marketing is essentially free. It is earned by the hard work of creating a top-notch company.

Customer recommendations make great marketing tools. An endorsement, testimonial or case study in your marketing materials is an excellent tool
to help establish proof of your business. Your sales content can rave about how your product or service solves your customer’s problems but when
someone else says it, it is more effective.

So you know what customer service is the most important question to ask yourself, how do you measure it? How do you know the answer?

Test it. Design systems to find out if customers recommend your products or services. You can accomplish this a number of ways including surveys or polls, incentive programs where customers receive a benefit by recommending you to others or by simply tracking how customers hear about you.

Promote it. Ask your customers to participate in a referral program. Every time someone recommends your product or service and a sale is made, reward them for spreading the word. Maintain products, services, and a business you’re proud of. Create strong relationships with your clients and build the best business possible. That’s the key to getting customers who are more than happy to recommend you to
others.

The most important customer service question is a valuable measurement of how you’re doing business. It helps you as a business owner not only understand how your customers value your products or services, it helps you gauge where you need to improve and it tells you how you can better improve your business to meet your customers’ and prospects’ needs. Will your customers recommend your products or services to others?

The Power of Perceptions in Shaping Customer Satisfaction

Is the glass half empty or half full? The definition resides in your customers' eyes..

Isn't it interesting how our perceptions rule our beliefs and actions? So much of the brain research today seems to support the idea that what we perceive defines our reality. This article examines the role that perception plays in the minds of consumers.

People Perceive Quality in Many Ways

Regardless of how good you believe your offerings or project solutions are, your clients and customers will be responding to "quality in perception" even more than "quality in fact."

Quality in fact refers to the features that we believe we're paying for, such as how much something weighs, how fast it runs, or various other characteristics.

Quality in perception pertains to things like special considerations, courtesies, a caring and personalized attitude, and many other subtleties that can lead us to believe we're receiving more than what we're paying for. Effective quality in perception can help compensate for any gaps in quality in fact that could otherwise irritate or inconvenience consumers.

Often, Perceived Value Is Not about Cost

Some years ago, I was a volunteer mediator in the Small Claims Court system. During my involvement in the court system, I became fascinated with the number of cases involving alleged wrongdoing or incompetence. People were suing businesses such as termite services and auto body painters, and even former best friends and health care providers over a variety of grievances! The suits often sought fairly small amounts of compensation, which meant that the financial aspects were not the primary concern.

What repeatedly emerged in the mediation sessions was that each plaintiff felt that the vendor, service provider, health care provider, or ex-friend had not listened to his or her concerns. Many of the plaintiffs believed that their concerns about shortcomings in services, products, or communications had simply been ignored.

However, if the defendants in these cases had earlier offered a simple, sincere apology -- and had they made a concerted effort to communicate while also taking timely remedial action -- I believe the resulting quality in perception could have prevented many of these lawsuits, even if the quality in fact still left something to be desired.

New Proof of the Power of Apologies

The New York Times recently reported that sincere, heart-felt apologies coming from doctors, surgeons, and hospitals who made serious medical mistakes have the effect of greatly reducing the likelihood that patients will sue for malpractice. In addition, patients who are willing to settle out of court often accept lower settlement payments than when doctors become defensive and deny what happened.

"Deny and defend" is the advice that malpractice lawyers and insurers typically give to doctors in the U.S., according to the Times. Studies that show that as few as 30 percent of medical errors are ever disclosed to patients. However, since malpractice claims have helped fuel skyrocketing medical costs, drastic changes in approaches to handling these high-stress situations are sorely needed.

According to the article, two years ago, the University of Illinois Medical Center initiated a program of openly acknowledging and apologizing for its medical mistakes. Ever since, the frequency of malpractice cases filed against the center has dropped in half. And in 37 cases where the hospital acknowledged a preventable error and apologized, only one patient has filed suit.

In one patient's situation described in the article, "the doctor was completely candid, completely honest, and so frank that . . . all the anger was gone." This apology also helped settle the case for a significantly lower amount.

Creating a Perception of Seamlessness

To help ensure the continuity of our customers' perceptions, we need to create consistently pleasant experiences in every interaction each person has, from visiting a Web site or bricks-and-mortar location, to asking for more information, to buying products, to receiving shipments, to interacting with the actual products or services, to asking for help, and so on.

Consider this very important point: People perceive a series of interactions with your organization and offerings as one cohesive experience -- as if everyone and everything represents threads in the same seamless piece of woven fabric.

Customers don't care whether behind the scenes, your business is spread out all over the world, or whether individual departments consist of contractors or employees, earthlings or aliens. Whenever customers call technical support representatives, for example, they expect them to know all about the features advertised on the Web site that are supposed to be in the product.

So, if there is any type of communication disconnect, you might be able to explain it to yourself, but there's no logical explanation for it in your customer's mind.

Prescriptions for Boosting Quality in Perception

These important findings show the power of apologies and candid communications in influencing the perceptions of clients, customers, or patients. To make sure you're not overlooking potential ways to create quality in perception, consider:

1) Special courtesies that can set your offerings apart from your competitors

2) Your ability to listen to and handle complaints quickly and diplomatically

3) Your willingness to be honest with clients about problems and shortcomings

4) Clear, prompt, and courteous communications that convey consistent details

Remember that quality in perception is not a substitute for quality in fact. But it can go a long way toward minimizing customer and client dissatisfaction, as well as powerfully reinforcing stellar quality when you ultimately deliver it.

The Answer’s Yes…What’s the Question?

A useful action plan to banish the word "NO" from your service dictionary..

I hate the word “NO”! I truly do, I can’t believe how many people from so many companies use it. It should be stricken from the English vocabulary. Ok maybe that’s a little severe, but it certainly should be stricken from any customer service focused company.

Recently, I was speaking at a prominent hotel in Las Vegas and when I got to my room I ordered room service. When I was asked if I wanted fries or coleslaw as my side, I inquired if I could have a side of fruit.

The person’s response was a quick and unfriendly “NO- fries or coleslaw?”. Now they offer fruit as a dish on the menu, so obviously NO was not the correct answer. How about, “certainly, while you cannot substitute the fruit for your side dish, I can add it to your order should you wish”?

Cameron Mitchell Restaurants, 27 upscale restaurants in seven states, headquartered in Columbus Ohio, not only has removed the word NO from their 2000 associates vocabulary, they have one of the best service brand promises that I have come across; “The answer’s yes…now what’s the question”? This is not just lip service, everyone in this company walks this talk throughout the organization. They have created such a strong above & beyond legacy that nearly everyone is trying to outdo each other daily, with unconventional ways they can exceed their guests expectations.

Cameron himself created a brilliant metaphor that the company’s service philosophy is founded on. It is known as the “Milkshake”. Legend has it, several years ago Cameron was a customer with his family at a restaurant and his son asked if he could have a milkshake. The server said “NO”! There’s that word again. Cameron knowing that the restaurant has ice cream, milk and a blender all at their disposal, couldn’t fathom why someone wouldn’t accommodate a guest when it was so simple. So the Milkshake became an icon to remind everyone in the organization about finding a way to say yes.

Having three young boys myself, I can’t tell you how many times this exact scenario has happened to me. As well as more than a few times we have been to a restaurant and one of my sons didn’t like anything on the kid’s menu and asked if he could have a grilled cheese sandwich, nearly every time the answer was “NO”! You mean to tell me that every restaurant doesn’t have bread & cheese they could throw on a stove?

The Milkshake has grown into a life of its own at Cameron Mitchell’s. The company does an incredible job with the constant awareness of what the milkshake represents. They start every company meeting with a “milkshake toast”, they have a “Milkshake Award” given to the associates who best demonstrate the spirit of their service brand promise, “the answer’s yes…now what’s the question”. If you walk into any of their locations, it is likely you will see several associates wearing milkshake pins, milkshake icons on posters, memos, training material and pictures.

Action Plan

To start, ensure that every employee understands that there is NO worse crime that they could commit than saying that horribly offensive two-letter word “NO”. Are there times when you absolutely cannot accommodate someone’s wishes? Certainly.

That is why you must do two exercises as an organization:

The first exercise is consider all the common situations that may arise that are difficult for you to say “yes” to and work on creative alternative responses to each. So your employees can be trained to make your customers feel like their request was granted, similar to my “side of fruit” dilemma.

The second exercise is to create a metaphor that is similar to Cameron Mitchell’s milkshake. Then advertise the hell out of it to your entire organization, on a daily basis through recognition, signage, awards and other themes. Empower everyone in your company to do whatever it
takes to deliver genuine hospitality.

Not Your Father’s (Or Mother’s) Customer Service

Customer Service is no longer a department; it’s become a marketing tool..

The manager of the repair department at a large security camera manufacturer opened the next box to work on that day. Within the box, he found a competitor’s camera returned for repair.

Without hesitation, the employee fixed the camera, enclosed a current catalog in the box along with a note stating that he repaired the camera for free, even though it was not of their manufacture. In doing so, he hopes the customer will think of his company, when they need to buy more cameras. At some companies, this employee may have risked
some type of disciplinary action, but not at Pelco.

Pelco, a California based manufacturer of security camera systems, has developed a customer service brand image of their company. They treat their customers like gold and vice versa. Once a fledgling sheet metal company, Pelco has become the #1 security camera manufacturer in the US and #2 in the world. A big part of their success is because of their customer service strategy. And the employee in question, he received the outstanding customer service award for that year.

While ordering a sandwich at Panera Bread recently, I had forgotten to request a substitution of mustard for horseradish. I hate horseradish. I picked up my sandwich and before I reached my table I had realized my mistake. I walked back to the sandwich maker and asked for a replacement. With a smile and without hesitation, the sandwich maker said “Oh, no problem!” She stopped what she was doing, and made me a new sandwich. If there was ever a situation befitting of the platitude, it’s not what you do, but how you do it, this was it!

Customer Service is no longer a department; it’s become a marketing tool. To some, customer service has become a way of branding one’s company. If your company views customer service as a department or function, I am sorry to say that there is not much you alone can do about it, unless you’re the boss. It’s like listening to music on cassette tapes in today’s digital world. It just ain’t happening. You need significant time and capital investments from your management-top management that is. A customer service strategy requires commitment from the top in order to work. Strategy? Yes, a strategy that encompasses a consistent message (Brand) throughout the organization so the customer feels the same way about your company in every interaction with your brand. When someone calls Pelco, they get a real live person on the telephone, not a recording. Why? For one, Pelco employs about 10 full time receptionists, but most importantly because customer service begins with the first contact with the CUSTOMER.

That sounds like a lot of work. You bet! Creating a customer service strategy and the resulting branding of your customer service is a life’s work. According to authors Janelle Barlow and Paul Stewart, in their book, Branded Customer Service, The New Competitive Edge, there are four customer service strategies; Customer Service as a Cost, Customer Service as a Necessity, Customer Service as a Competitive Advantage, and Customer Service as an Essential Living Expression of the Brand.

The point highlighted by Barlow and Stewart in their analysis of these strategies and more specifically, the last and most developed of the strategies, is that customer service is seen as a vital aspect of the organization. Wow! That’s a salesperson’s nirvana. The flip side of that point makes it sad to think that every organization does NOT see customer service as vital.

In today’s hypercompetitive global economy, we are all striving for differentiation. Making customer service a vital focus in your organization can transform a forgotten department or role into a competitive advantage. It gives your employees ownership of a goal they can all achieve and all benefit from its accomplishment. Just ask Pelco and Panera Bread.

Customer Focus in a Slow Economy

In these tough and challenging times, getting the customer experience right is critical..

I wanted to call this article “Sharpen Your Customer Focus You Will Lose Customers!” but a few of my colleagues thought this was a bit too blunt. Absolutely true mind you, but blunt. Then I thought why not make the headline a question; “How Many Customers Are You Willing To Lose Today Because of a Lack of Customer Focus?” Again, true but too direct. So in the end I went with what you see above.

So here we are again. The economy is getting tough and for many, life is stressful and difficult. For business, this is not new.

We’ve all been here before. Hopefully we’ve learned from the last time the economy slowed … But then again, have we?

Nobody wants to lose customers but you know as well as I that when the economy gets tough, many organizations go into reactive mode. Their focus shifts to cost control and the acquisition of new customers. History has taught us that every time this happens, relationships with existing customers can be put at risk. Financial responsibility is important, as is getting new business, but not if it is at the expense of your existing customers.

Allow me explain.

During an economic downturn most customers will be looking to increase value for their money. They will try to make their hard earned cash go further and you can be sure that they will be more critical when making buying decisions.

With less disposable income, customers will be less forgiving of a mediocre or poor service experience. And don’t forget that when it comes to service, the vast majority, 90 to 96%, will not complain and most will simply go elsewhere. You can bet that they will want to deal with organizations that demonstrate that they want and appreciate their business.

You can also be guaranteed that your customers will be strongly influenced by the commentary of their friends, acquaintances, family and colleagues when it comes to recommendations for products or services and providers.

As I mentioned earlier, when economic conditions become more demanding, far too many organizations focus on cost cutting and acquiring new customers which invariably puts the relationships with their existing customers at risk.

Quite often training budgets are the first to get cut. This includes all important training on things like Customer Service and Leadership.

Process improvement plans get put on hold often including process improvements that were intended to enhance the customer experience.

Even though it is five times more expensive to get new customers than it is to keep existing already profitable customers, many organizations bolster their marketing efforts trying to pull more customers in the front door, at the same time virtually ignoring their existing customers who simply walk out the backdoor looking for someone who wants and appreciates their business and proves it through their actions.

The retention of existing customers is all the more important during difficult economic conditions. Research proves that existing customers are more profitable and improvements in your operating expenses and resulting bottom line can be achieved through maintaining a high level of customer focus. Just to remind you, don’t forget a five percent increase in customer loyalty can contribute from 25% to 125% directly to your bottom line.

Remember that your customers always have the choice of buying from you or your competition. When times are tough, that choice becomes even more important.

Implementing a customer focus strategy will create valuable and long-lasting relationships with your customers that will provide a secure and growing revenue stream.

Focusing on getting the customer experience right is critical. Making sure that your customers choose you over your competition is essential. If you get it right when times are tough you will certainly reap the benefits and rewards of unleashing the power of customer focus as conditions improve.

So this time, why not dare to be different. Why not unleash the potential of customer focus, while everyone else has their eye off the ball.