Jim Clemmer is author of Firing on All Cylinders. In a recent blog entry he reinforced what I always emphasize: Communication is a key catalyst to achieving customer service excellence.
In any game plan for improvement the objective must be to make Communication into a forethought rather than the habitual afterthought.
"If you’re leading efforts to improve your team’s internal or external service/quality levels, here are seven common pitfalls and traps to your vital education and communication efforts:
Mixed Messages – internal and external marketing must be tied together. Frontline staff need to hear the same message your customers are hearing. Too often servers are the last to hear about the wonderful service/quality they’re being committed to provide.
Not Walking Your Talk – you and your management team must behave in a manner consistent with the messages being broadcast to everyone. You do the strongest internal marketing (or blocking) of the true value and priority of service/quality with your tiny, seemingly insignificant daily actions. Nothing else will convince (or turn off) today’s younger generations of workers than perceived hypocrisy.
Stale and Stalling – managers trying to build higher service/quality cultures are often frustrated with how long it takes to get the message through to those who make or break the effort. Too often – just as managers are getting tired of repeating the same messages – people on the front line are beginning to think, “Just maybe, quite possibly, they might be serious this time.” The watchwords are consistency and repetition, repetition, repetition …
Educated but Unskilled – you can give people plenty of education, information, inspiration, and awareness but if servers and support staff don’t have the skills to improve service/quality they will become frustrated and disengaged. Awareness and empowerment are useless without enablement. Everyone needs to know how to make improvements.
Bypassing Team Leaders – you can get frontline teams excited and committed to improving service/quality but their enthusiasm will be short-lived if their supervisor or team leader isn’t first brought on board and given the skills to introduce, support, coach and lead the team’s efforts. Very few service errors come from lack of motivation. Most of them are a result of the system, process, structure, or practices. These are controlled by management.
Once (or Maybe Twice) is Enough – you can’t repeat your core service/quality messages too often or in too many ways. As one manager put it, “I’ve learned that just because you think it, write it, or say it doesn’t mean employees hear it or believe it.” A CEO adds her experience; “I vastly underestimated the job. On the first go-round, all I got were glassy-eyed stares, open mouths, and sometimes passionate disagreement…establishing our new brand took a year, and even then it was not a lasting vaccination. It required booster shots.” Just like continuous improvement, education and communication is never finished. "
Thursday, September 9, 2010
Thursday, September 2, 2010
Top 10 Customer Service Turn Offs
It takes only a few moments to damage a customer relationship that took several years to build. The best way to retain your existing customers is by being diligent in your everyday dealings. Given below are the top 10 customer service turn offs and ways to turn things around to reinforce and strengthen your customer relationships.
In today’s tech-oriented, increasingly incongruous business world, businesses can win the hearts and loyalty of customers by avoiding these 10 customer service turn offs posted by contributor Lee Kennedy on Customer Management IQ. Spot-on, Lee...
Amateur Staff:
Nothing irritates a customer more than a customer service representative with half-baked knowledge. Even if you have a small team of customer service agents, it helps to train them adequately so that they can represent your company appropriately. It helps to understand that, each and every customer service agent is the face of your company for the customers, and hence should be knowledgeable enough to give correct information and provide suitable solutions.
Trying to Win an Argument:
You can certainly win an argument by defending your company and reacting to your customer’s complains, but you cannot win his loyalty by doing that. You can only win his allegiance and loyalty by empathizing and apologizing (and that even holds true when it’s not your mistake).
Rigid Policies:
Sticking to stringent policies can be the fastest way to lose customers. Depending on the strength of the customer relationship, you should be willing to bend policies, or at least try to identify ways of doing so to strengthen customer relationships.
Futile Commitments and Promises:
Only promise when you are 100 percent confident that you will be able to deliver within the committed time. If you realize you cannot deliver when originally promised, have the courtesy to call your customer and inform him of the reason and the changed date of delivery.
Diffidence:
Customers like doing business with accessible companies. If you have not kept your customer informed about the point of contact during an hour of emergency, then it is more than a probability that your client will soon shift to another company. If you want a customer’s loyalty, provide them with accessibility and warmth.
Poor Acknowledgements:
Failing to provide your customers with appropriate acknowledgements will result in the customer feeling neglected, which will inadvertently lead to loss of business. If a customer is unhappy about a personal or professional loss, expressing concern, commenting suitably and acknowledging the issue will ensure satisfaction.
Poor Records:
The same goes for titles. It may sound petty, but referring to Mrs. Thomas as Mr. Thomas, or Mr. Jackson and Mr. Johnson is only going to worsen your bond with the customer. Constantly misspelled names and inappropriate titles discourage a customer’s loyalty.
Ignoring the Basics of Customer Service:
Simple acknowledgements such as “Thank You” and “Sorry” still mean a lot to the majority of customers. If you ignore these basic phrases, you can count on losing clientele.
Call shuffling:
This is the worst and the most common customer service turn off. If a customer’s call is being transferred from department to department, and if no one is ready to take the responsibility, it could turn off even the most patient customer. On the contrary, if you’re able to provide your customer with ‘First Contact Resolution’, you can count on customer satisfaction.
Apathy and Failure to Listen:
Apathy and failure to listen are two of the most unforgivable customer service mistakes, and are often taken seriously by customers. You can often make your customer’s day by listening to them attentively.
In today’s tech-oriented, increasingly incongruous business world, businesses can win the hearts and loyalty of customers by avoiding these 10 customer service turn offs posted by contributor Lee Kennedy on Customer Management IQ. Spot-on, Lee...
Amateur Staff:
Nothing irritates a customer more than a customer service representative with half-baked knowledge. Even if you have a small team of customer service agents, it helps to train them adequately so that they can represent your company appropriately. It helps to understand that, each and every customer service agent is the face of your company for the customers, and hence should be knowledgeable enough to give correct information and provide suitable solutions.
Trying to Win an Argument:
You can certainly win an argument by defending your company and reacting to your customer’s complains, but you cannot win his loyalty by doing that. You can only win his allegiance and loyalty by empathizing and apologizing (and that even holds true when it’s not your mistake).
Rigid Policies:
Sticking to stringent policies can be the fastest way to lose customers. Depending on the strength of the customer relationship, you should be willing to bend policies, or at least try to identify ways of doing so to strengthen customer relationships.
Futile Commitments and Promises:
Only promise when you are 100 percent confident that you will be able to deliver within the committed time. If you realize you cannot deliver when originally promised, have the courtesy to call your customer and inform him of the reason and the changed date of delivery.
Diffidence:
Customers like doing business with accessible companies. If you have not kept your customer informed about the point of contact during an hour of emergency, then it is more than a probability that your client will soon shift to another company. If you want a customer’s loyalty, provide them with accessibility and warmth.
Poor Acknowledgements:
Failing to provide your customers with appropriate acknowledgements will result in the customer feeling neglected, which will inadvertently lead to loss of business. If a customer is unhappy about a personal or professional loss, expressing concern, commenting suitably and acknowledging the issue will ensure satisfaction.
Poor Records:
The same goes for titles. It may sound petty, but referring to Mrs. Thomas as Mr. Thomas, or Mr. Jackson and Mr. Johnson is only going to worsen your bond with the customer. Constantly misspelled names and inappropriate titles discourage a customer’s loyalty.
Ignoring the Basics of Customer Service:
Simple acknowledgements such as “Thank You” and “Sorry” still mean a lot to the majority of customers. If you ignore these basic phrases, you can count on losing clientele.
Call shuffling:
This is the worst and the most common customer service turn off. If a customer’s call is being transferred from department to department, and if no one is ready to take the responsibility, it could turn off even the most patient customer. On the contrary, if you’re able to provide your customer with ‘First Contact Resolution’, you can count on customer satisfaction.
Apathy and Failure to Listen:
Apathy and failure to listen are two of the most unforgivable customer service mistakes, and are often taken seriously by customers. You can often make your customer’s day by listening to them attentively.
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