A pleasant customer service experience over the phone earlier today prompted me to share this tip as a reminder of the huge rewards that companies get from handling customer complaints effectively.
Having ordered a set of colour glaze mugs online along with four other items, you can imagine my dismay when on opening the package, I discovered that FOUR of the six mugs were broken. Not cracked or the handle badly broken, but smashed into numerous fragments!
Another two fragile items were undamaged, so the inconvenience was most unwelcomed, especially at this time of the year. Online shopping was meant to help me manage time better, not waste it.
On calling customer service and providing details or the order number and damaged item, the agent indicated that she’ll order another set out. She listened, understood the problem, assessed the situation and offered a solution. Within two minutes, she had offered a solution, taken a note for the manager and apologised on behalf of the company she represented. That is what I consider ‘Customer Service Excellence’!
‘Improve Customer Service’ is the first of my seven tips on how to recession proof your business. Here’s why: When businesses treat ‘EVERYONE’ as a valued customer (internal and external). It pays dividends with motivated staff and loyal customers. Loyal customers provide referrals.
What the customer service agent did was to convert a potentially charged situation into a pleasant experience and in the process raised the credibility of the company in my view. Yes, a referral for that company is one I am happy to make.
Best for 2009!
Veronica
www.executive-solutions.co.uk/Events.htm
Why not join me on Twitter? Here’s the link to say hello: http://twitter.com/VeronicaBr
Wednesday 31 December 2008
Monday 24 November 2008
Recession proof your business -retaining and attracting customers
In a recession, businesses selling training and coaching services to other businesses face huge challenges to get customers to continue investing in staff as a way of increasing business success. An economic downturn does present opportunities for some businesses as they expand their products and services to a wider range of customers.
Businesses are faced with the uphill task of retaining customers and attracting new ones cannot rely on a bruised and demoralised sales and marketing teams.
Here are seven steps you can take to ensure you retain existing customers, even as you attract news ones:
* Improve customer service. Treat everyone as a valued customer (internal and external). It pays dividends with motivated staff and loyal customers. Loyal customers provide referrals.
*Repackage your services or products to include a menu reflecting the varied needs of clients. Clients will benefit by getting greater value for money.
* Offer post-sale support, e.g., free advice, instead of selling another ‘solution’ immediately.
* Reward client loyalty –provide free reports or product samples.
* Be flexible. Make it easier for clients to do business with you. Go to them, rather than having them come to you.
* Provide incentives for new clients, discounts for multiple purchases.
* Invest in staff training, especially in improving customer service and innovative approaches to winning new clients.
Difficult economic climate calls for creative solutions and innovative approaches and repositioning of businesses.
What do you think? Do share any additional suggestions you have of what has worked in your organisation.
Veronica
Sunday 14 September 2008
-How a telephone company misrepresented its reward for customer loyalty
A representative of my broadband provider telephoned and proceeded to congratulate me on being a loyal broadband customer. Yes, I agreed readily. She indicated that the company wanted to reward my loyalty with a discount on monthly broadband charges. Great News I though! This caller not only got my attention, but gained my interest.
Next she stated she will need to go through a few questions with me. At first this seemed a reasonable request, but as I considered this a seed of suspicion was sown. Why, I asked myself if I was being rewarded for loyalty does she need to ask further questions before she could indicate the level of discount I would receive for this loyalty. I gave voice to my thoughts and in response to my question she replied that changes could not be made to my broadband account without my permission. Still seemed like a rational request, despite the seed of suspicion germinating in my thoughts. Nonetheless, I agreed to answer her questions.
Well it’s, the first one that caused me to loose any desire for whatever reward she was about to offer for my loyalty as a broadband customer.
She asked “Will you be renewing your broadband contract for another 12 months?”
Contrary to the caller’s assumption, I do not make decisions about entering into new contracts without first understanding the terms. Neither would I decide to extend a 12 month contract with a utility provider in a 90 second conversation.
What the caller had done was to impose conditionality in offering me a reward for loyalty. In business, rewards for loyalty should be unconditional. Rewards are not based on what you will do in future, they are a consequence of what you did in the past.
In that moment, I recognised also that what the rep had phoned to offer was not a loyalty reward but an incentive for customer retention. There is a significant difference between the two. The former rewards past behaviour, the latter provides an incentive for further positive action.
Here was a telephone provider that was unapologetic about the fact that the company’s focus was on sales not service to customers. The marketing department or the company putting together the marketing campaign failed to recognise that with excellent/exceptional customer service –additional sales are generated automatically directly from the current clients and indirectly from referrals made by those clients.
If your organisation considers customer service to be a key part of your business success, then your marketing strategy should be consistent with this, not contrary to it.
Here are FIVE key points marketing departments and companies should remember when developing the telephone script for the marketing campaign:
1. Rewarding customer loyalty is ‘unconditional’. Loyalty is based on past actions and rewards should be offered without any conditions. This, however, does not prevent companies from providing incentives for customer retention.
2. Providing incentives to loyal customers is an effective way of encouraging them to use your services in the future. Incentives for customer retention should be in addition to, not in place of or a replacement for rewarding customer loyalty. Indeed, in some circumstances, incentives can be provided instead of a reward for loyalty.
3. If convinced you provide a high quality of service to customers and would score high in customer service surveys, you can feel confident that not providing a reward for customer loyalty would not dissuade your customers from accepting an incentive for continuing to do business with your organisation.
4. Companies with less than satisfactory quality of customer service have reason to be cautious about providing incentives only. Such businesses may want to consider offering both rewards and incentives to customers. Rewards would then be used as a way of compensating customers for providing less than satisfactory service. In addition to promising improvements to the customer experience, you can also provide incentives for customers to continue doing business with you.
5. Find out what are your customers present needs and what you can do to improve customer satisfaction. Customer services surveys provide invaluable information on what else can be done to improve the customer experience and exceed customer expectations.
By rewarding the past, providing incentives for the future and addressing present views and needs, businesses are well on their way to ensuring not only high levels of customer satisfaction, but even greater levels of customer retention and increasing frequency of customer referrals.
Another group of key ingredients in the recipe for ‘Staying ahead of Competitors’.
Next she stated she will need to go through a few questions with me. At first this seemed a reasonable request, but as I considered this a seed of suspicion was sown. Why, I asked myself if I was being rewarded for loyalty does she need to ask further questions before she could indicate the level of discount I would receive for this loyalty. I gave voice to my thoughts and in response to my question she replied that changes could not be made to my broadband account without my permission. Still seemed like a rational request, despite the seed of suspicion germinating in my thoughts. Nonetheless, I agreed to answer her questions.
Well it’s, the first one that caused me to loose any desire for whatever reward she was about to offer for my loyalty as a broadband customer.
She asked “Will you be renewing your broadband contract for another 12 months?”
Contrary to the caller’s assumption, I do not make decisions about entering into new contracts without first understanding the terms. Neither would I decide to extend a 12 month contract with a utility provider in a 90 second conversation.
What the caller had done was to impose conditionality in offering me a reward for loyalty. In business, rewards for loyalty should be unconditional. Rewards are not based on what you will do in future, they are a consequence of what you did in the past.
In that moment, I recognised also that what the rep had phoned to offer was not a loyalty reward but an incentive for customer retention. There is a significant difference between the two. The former rewards past behaviour, the latter provides an incentive for further positive action.
Here was a telephone provider that was unapologetic about the fact that the company’s focus was on sales not service to customers. The marketing department or the company putting together the marketing campaign failed to recognise that with excellent/exceptional customer service –additional sales are generated automatically directly from the current clients and indirectly from referrals made by those clients.
If your organisation considers customer service to be a key part of your business success, then your marketing strategy should be consistent with this, not contrary to it.
Here are FIVE key points marketing departments and companies should remember when developing the telephone script for the marketing campaign:
1. Rewarding customer loyalty is ‘unconditional’. Loyalty is based on past actions and rewards should be offered without any conditions. This, however, does not prevent companies from providing incentives for customer retention.
2. Providing incentives to loyal customers is an effective way of encouraging them to use your services in the future. Incentives for customer retention should be in addition to, not in place of or a replacement for rewarding customer loyalty. Indeed, in some circumstances, incentives can be provided instead of a reward for loyalty.
3. If convinced you provide a high quality of service to customers and would score high in customer service surveys, you can feel confident that not providing a reward for customer loyalty would not dissuade your customers from accepting an incentive for continuing to do business with your organisation.
4. Companies with less than satisfactory quality of customer service have reason to be cautious about providing incentives only. Such businesses may want to consider offering both rewards and incentives to customers. Rewards would then be used as a way of compensating customers for providing less than satisfactory service. In addition to promising improvements to the customer experience, you can also provide incentives for customers to continue doing business with you.
5. Find out what are your customers present needs and what you can do to improve customer satisfaction. Customer services surveys provide invaluable information on what else can be done to improve the customer experience and exceed customer expectations.
By rewarding the past, providing incentives for the future and addressing present views and needs, businesses are well on their way to ensuring not only high levels of customer satisfaction, but even greater levels of customer retention and increasing frequency of customer referrals.
Another group of key ingredients in the recipe for ‘Staying ahead of Competitors’.
Sunday 27 July 2008
It has been a while, but here's a bonus
Yes, after a hiatus of more than two months since my last post, but what a hectic time it has been.
Developing new training courses, both customised based on clients' needs and for public delivery, forging new links in the education sector and attending to my own continued personal development training. During the break, I was wrote several e-zine articles and ensured the double issue of the Winning by Speaking enewsletter was mailed to clients in housing and architects.
Now, here's your bumper gift! As a bonus for your patience, here are the links to four articles on confidence building and interview skills:
10 Tips for Building a Bridge to Confidence and Success in Life
Better Public Speaking Skills Gets You Heard
Making the Leap - From Nursery to Workplace
Be Confident and Succeed at Interviews - For Job Seeking Moms
After you've read the articles, feel free to send Se your feedback on this blog.
Veronica
Developing new training courses, both customised based on clients' needs and for public delivery, forging new links in the education sector and attending to my own continued personal development training. During the break, I was wrote several e-zine articles and ensured the double issue of the Winning by Speaking enewsletter was mailed to clients in housing and architects.
Now, here's your bumper gift! As a bonus for your patience, here are the links to four articles on confidence building and interview skills:
10 Tips for Building a Bridge to Confidence and Success in Life
Better Public Speaking Skills Gets You Heard
Making the Leap - From Nursery to Workplace
Be Confident and Succeed at Interviews - For Job Seeking Moms
After you've read the articles, feel free to send Se your feedback on this blog.
Veronica
Sunday 13 April 2008
Great writers are seldom great speakers….. What do you think?
Having spent last Saturday in Bristol attending the AGM of the English Speaking Board (ESB)**, an accreditation body for a range of courses with emphasis on English as a spoken language, I dedicated the return journey to reading previous issues of the ESB newsletter -a semiannual publication.
And, it was there that I stumbled on the statement that formed the title of today’s blog. In reporting about a previous ESB conference, there it was “..writers are seldom great speakers”. Well I was gob smack. I had not thought about this previously. Then, I began thinking about writers I know who are entrepreneurs also. Two immediately came to mind, both very experienced and skilled in their craft. But then I realised that the statement was applicable to them, skilled writers they were but skilled in public speaking they were not, as I recalled their rambling speeches and ones in which the introduction was lengthy and the conclusion not readily evident.
to received feedback from introductions predid not called also that the quote was writers, but
They were unable to organise their speeches and other presentations and to engage with their audiences during delivery. One had in fact related an earlier negative experience of speaking in front of her primary school class having this debilitating effect whenever required to speak. The other although use to and comfortable speaking before various audiences had not made the mental adjustment required to move from the written form to having a conversation with the audience, condensing the content so as to gain the attention and maintain the interest of the audience.
However, even as I recalled those two, I then thought of a third writer who took time out to develop her speaking skills and had sought membership of an organisation devoted to public speaking and effective communication and who had the benefit of evaluations of her presentations and it showed in the quality of her presentations.
So, even as two of the writers I know sought peer and professional help to improve the quality of presentations and another choose ‘to wing it’ as the need for training in speech craft remains unacknowledged.
Although my ‘straw poll reflection’ suggest there is merit in the statement “… writers are seldom great speakers”, my years as a researcher did not allow me to arrive at that conclusion as a three-person sample did not form the basis of a scientific study.
Yes, I hear you say, “one or two swans don’t make a summer”. However, anecdotally, it seem there is merit in the writer’s assertion that “….great writers seldom make great speakers”. What do you think?
Best,
Veronica
** Executive Solutions (Training) Ltd is a member of the English Speaking Board, an accreditation body recognised by the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority (QCA), now replaced by the new regulator Ofqual.
And, it was there that I stumbled on the statement that formed the title of today’s blog. In reporting about a previous ESB conference, there it was “..writers are seldom great speakers”. Well I was gob smack. I had not thought about this previously. Then, I began thinking about writers I know who are entrepreneurs also. Two immediately came to mind, both very experienced and skilled in their craft. But then I realised that the statement was applicable to them, skilled writers they were but skilled in public speaking they were not, as I recalled their rambling speeches and ones in which the introduction was lengthy and the conclusion not readily evident.
to received feedback from introductions predid not called also that the quote was writers, but
They were unable to organise their speeches and other presentations and to engage with their audiences during delivery. One had in fact related an earlier negative experience of speaking in front of her primary school class having this debilitating effect whenever required to speak. The other although use to and comfortable speaking before various audiences had not made the mental adjustment required to move from the written form to having a conversation with the audience, condensing the content so as to gain the attention and maintain the interest of the audience.
However, even as I recalled those two, I then thought of a third writer who took time out to develop her speaking skills and had sought membership of an organisation devoted to public speaking and effective communication and who had the benefit of evaluations of her presentations and it showed in the quality of her presentations.
So, even as two of the writers I know sought peer and professional help to improve the quality of presentations and another choose ‘to wing it’ as the need for training in speech craft remains unacknowledged.
Although my ‘straw poll reflection’ suggest there is merit in the statement “… writers are seldom great speakers”, my years as a researcher did not allow me to arrive at that conclusion as a three-person sample did not form the basis of a scientific study.
Yes, I hear you say, “one or two swans don’t make a summer”. However, anecdotally, it seem there is merit in the writer’s assertion that “….great writers seldom make great speakers”. What do you think?
Best,
Veronica
** Executive Solutions (Training) Ltd is a member of the English Speaking Board, an accreditation body recognised by the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority (QCA), now replaced by the new regulator Ofqual.
Sunday 3 February 2008
Communication BLUNDERS could cost millions£££££
Today's comment is based on listing to presentations recently that were littered with Ahms, Ahms and other inappropriate revelations.
Situation 1
A few weeks ago, I was part of an audience where one of the main Speakers used the first minute of his presentation to comment on the time limitation he faced, so he did not begin to deliver his message until after a minute of excuses.
TIP: Remember, when you have the floor, always give your audience the reason for your presentation and share the content, NOT the excuses for why you’ll be unable to ‘tell it all’.
Situation 2
Listening to a speaker who delivers a laboured speech, made up of rambling sentences, littered with Ahms and spoken in a rather quiet voice. Are these signs of nervousness or poor planning and preparation?
TIP: Be upbeat and energised in your delivery not laboured. If at a loss for words, use the pause to take a deep breath and give your audience time to catch up with you. Try to do this at the end of the sentence, rather than having a series of incomplete sentences.
Situation 3
Another Speaker I saw used power point slides that had up to 17 lines of text on slides. This was in addition to two graphic images and the header and footer. Very cluttered!
TIP: Power point slides should not be used to share your notes with your audience. They should be used to add emphasis, provide clarity and support your spoken message.
Can you recall similar communication blunders? Then share these and your suggestions for improvement.
Best,
Veronica
www.executive-solutions.co.uk
Situation 1
A few weeks ago, I was part of an audience where one of the main Speakers used the first minute of his presentation to comment on the time limitation he faced, so he did not begin to deliver his message until after a minute of excuses.
TIP: Remember, when you have the floor, always give your audience the reason for your presentation and share the content, NOT the excuses for why you’ll be unable to ‘tell it all’.
Situation 2
Listening to a speaker who delivers a laboured speech, made up of rambling sentences, littered with Ahms and spoken in a rather quiet voice. Are these signs of nervousness or poor planning and preparation?
TIP: Be upbeat and energised in your delivery not laboured. If at a loss for words, use the pause to take a deep breath and give your audience time to catch up with you. Try to do this at the end of the sentence, rather than having a series of incomplete sentences.
Situation 3
Another Speaker I saw used power point slides that had up to 17 lines of text on slides. This was in addition to two graphic images and the header and footer. Very cluttered!
TIP: Power point slides should not be used to share your notes with your audience. They should be used to add emphasis, provide clarity and support your spoken message.
Can you recall similar communication blunders? Then share these and your suggestions for improvement.
Best,
Veronica
www.executive-solutions.co.uk
Sunday 20 January 2008
How much does poor customer service cost your business?
Late last year, Thames Water faced a fine of £12.5 million for poor customer service and misleading the regulator Ofwat. This news item was reported in September (2007) last. An article in Times online revealed that the company was fined £11.1 million for “inadequate” reporting and customer service and £1.4 million for failing to pay compensation to customers. I was reminded of this incident recently on learning about yet another display of scant regard for customers by a business. I concluded that if fines are imposed for poor customer service, many businesses would soon be forced to file for bankruptcy.
Displays of poor communication in delivering customer service can be costly. Not only are reputations damaged and profits reduced, but shareholders receive lower or no income as dividends and employees see their salaries freeze or kept just in line with inflation.
Here are a few of suggestions for improving customer service:
· Identify customer needs and expectations -respond to them.
· Handle difficult situations swiftly, thoughtfully and firmly –avoid escalation.
· Be quick to admit when wrong –customers prefer honesty when mistakes are made.
· Be prepared for and respond to changing needs of customers.
· Demonstrate CARE (Courteous Action Required Everytime).
What are your top strategies for providing excellence to your customers?
Veronica
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