We recognize that our customers time is valuable, and that there is no excuse for unprofessional conduct. Unfortunately, the industry is infamous for such conduct. However, we believe that consumers should expect and demand more.
Capital Remodeling, Inc. http://greatviewwindows.com/about.htm
Author: GregRoworth
Better Customer Serviceis Not Optional
Providing better customer service is an obvious competitive strategy that creates the platform to achieve success in your market. For that reason, is is almost unbelievable that customer service is so poor from so many businesses. Most business owners I talk to want to provide better customer service. However, their attempts to develop customer service policies and behaviours throughout their business are often frustrated. In this article, we highlight why providing better customer service is not optional if you want to achieve business success and some ways to achieve better customer service, by approaching the topic somewhat differently than you might anticipate.
Provide Better Customer Service by Identifying Unmet Needs
One reason many businesses fail at providing better customer service is that they try to compete head-to-head with their competitors. They take them on at their own game. This strategy is difficult to make work, because of competitor reactions. Both you and your competitor either get stronger at customer service, or someone tries to take a shortcut and ends up undermining the reputation of everyone in the industry. A better approach is to try to identify unmet needs within your market that no competitor is paying attention to. This is a strategy that can propel your success to market domination like no other.
One company that used this strategy and grew from a neighborhood outlet to a world-wide phenomenon was Domino’s Pizza. In a commodity market such as pizza restaurants, where they were getting killed, Tom Monaghan identified a need that no one was paying much attention to - home delivery. At the time, home deliveries were seen as a way to top up the down times when the eat-in restaurant was a bit quiet. As a result, home deliveries were given low priority and often the customer received their pizza order after a long wait, by which time it arrived cold and unappetising.
Guarantee Better Customer Service to Achieve Market Domination
Monaghan saw a way he could provide better customer service by targeting this unmet need. He came up with a strategy to deliver to this market “fresh, hot pizza in 30 minutes, or it was free.” He saw a need and used a powerful guarantee of better customer service to gain a foothold in this market. His strategy was so successful, that the market for pizza grew phenomenally, as he created a whole new market of pizza lovers who preferred home delivery who would not eat at a pizza restaurant. He not only changed his business’s fate from a struggling also ran to a hugely successful multi-national operation, all on the strength of a uniquely audacious guarantee that no one else had the courage to copy.
Achieve Better Customer Service by Selling Them More
One of the disappointing aspects of customer service in many businesses, particularly obvious in retail stores, emanates from the lack of sales skill of most retail sales people. Many business owners and sales people seem to think that selling is the antipathy of providing service. People don’t want high pressure, you say. Absolutely correct. But neither do they want insipid sales people who cannot offer quality service because they can’t think proactively about what customers may need and are too weak to offer additional opportunities to buy when they have a willing customer giving them their attention. This poor service comes at a high cost to both the customer and the business owner, as well as the salesperson if they earn any type of remuneration based on performance.
Better customer service can be achieved by being aware of what else your customer might need if they buy a particular item, and ensuring that your sales people ask if they would like it. McDonald’s made this an art form with the question, “Would you like fries with that?” You need to think about what products or services, or combinations of products and services, go naturally together. Offering these extra items is not high pressure sales tactics. It is better customer service to help someone who needs your product to identify what they want and how they can get them. If you don’t offer these things to your customer you are negligent and uncaring. As long as you offer them without pressure and allow your customer to decide, you are providing better customer service.
Provide Better Customer Service by Building Intimate Relationships
Intimacy is about knowing more about another person than the norm. When you build intimate relationships with your customers, you are get to know them in a way that you can anticipate their needs and provide better customer service. When you are aware of what your customers want and find a way for them to get it, you are not being pushy, as long as you relate to your customer in a way that honors and respects them. These days there are many tools you can use to increase your ability to communicate with customers and get to know their needs and wants. You don’t enhance your ability to provide better customer service by being back-footed and waiting for customers to ask first. Your service levels increase greatly when you let your valued customers know how they can get their special favorites first, or how they can jump the queue to get the newest item that may take their fancy, before it is made known widely to the general public.
Be creative and find ways to develop intimacy with your customers.
Providing better customer service is not difficult if you use your imagination and creativity. Don’t go head-to-head with your competitors and try to out do them where can compete directly against you. Come up with innovative ways to provide better customer service by looking for unmet needs, or selling your customers more, or by getting to know them better. It’s not that hard and the results can be phenomenal.
By Larry Galler
Some businesses have created a customer service culture; it seems that others really don’t care. Those who work at creating a customer service culture have less difficulty attracting and retaining their customers. It seems obvious that those who design products and services should keep the needs of their prospects at the forefront.
Some go to great lengths to make their products more customer-friendly. As an example auto makers Nissan and Ford have their designers mimic physically challenged drivers by having them wear “weight belts” that add inches to waistlines so they can incorporate the needs of heavy people in their cars. Designers also wear “aging suits” that inhibit physical mobility to make those designers more sensitive to the difficulties older people have when entering and exiting cars. They use that experience when designing doors, seats, and controls. They even wear “foggy” eyeglasses to better enable people with sight problems to drive with a greater degree of safety.
Has your business created a customer service culture? Does it design products and services to meet the needs of people who, for one reason or another, find it difficult to go into the marketplace? It would be worth the time to audit all aspects of your business to insure it is meeting the needs of all your customers and prospects.
A customer service culture means that you inspect your public areas to see if they can be negotiated by a mom pushing a stroller or a person in a wheelchair. Read your forms and signage to see whether the “fine print” is too fine for someone with poor eyesight. If your advertising is aimed to special groups (teens, seniors, ethnic populations, people whose native language isn’t English) make sure word usage, syntax, and abbreviations are relevant and appropriate. My mother is 94 years old and under five feet tall. She has difficulty reaching products in stores and shops at a grocery store where the staff is on the alert to be sensitive to their customers and can help them make purchases easily.
Emphasize the design aspects of customer service and you will really serve your customers.
Posted by Capital Remodeling, Inc.
By Gloria Gangi
When you are asked to define good customer service what are the first thoughts that come to mind? The ability to supply your customers’ wants and needs, whether they are new or existing customers.
Providing exceptional customer service centers around ensuring your customers are happy. Your overall objective is to ensure that they are coming back for more or referring your services. By doing this you will be ensuring your continuing lively hood in the business that you have chosen to create.
There are several points that need to be considered if you wish to provide exceptional customer service these are a must for all businesses.
1. Supply your finest service and ensure that it is provided on time. If you promise a product at a certain time ensure that it is delivered then. If for any reason you have to delay delivery, be honest with your client and inform them of the situation. Compensate or alleviate the problem if it causes your client any inconvenience.
2. Listen to what your client wants and needs. Work with your client to provide them with the product that they need. Provide the advice that they need but also listen to their suggestions. You never know when what they suggest can help you improve your own business
3. Keep up with technology. Always strive to improve your services. With technology advancing at the rate it is you need to be sure that your skills are up to date as well. Enhancing your services allows you to offer more to your clients and thus keeps them happy.
4. There is nothing like a guarantee. This is an important point of exceptional customer service. When a customer is 100% happy with what you have provided for them they are the biggest asset to your future. You will find that referrals come from their happiness. If they are not happy ensure that it is fixed right a way.
5. Provide prompt responses to all communications & inquiries. There is nothing a customer hates more than being kept waiting. If you have to get back to a customer do it with 24 hours. The longer you leave to respond to an enquiry the greater the chance the client will move onto another business.
6. Don’t forget your manners - Always say thank you! How good do you feel when someone says thank you to you? Send out thank you cards to those who request a quote and when a new client comes on board. To save costs, send e-cards or emails of thanks.
So if we had to define good customer service it should be easy. Keep your clients happy by adding value to your business and the services you provide. And if all else fails think on how you would like to be treated if you went into their business.
Posted by Capital Remodeling Inc
By Drew Stevens
Finding Solutions that otherwise puzzle organizations
Organizations believe that they provide exactly what customers desire. Ask any firm and the Paretto Principle prevails. 80 percent of most organizations believe they deliver exemplary customer service. Ironically, less then 20 percent do. According to research by consultancy Bain and Company, only 8 percent of companies really deliver on customer service.
Our present environment exists with a gap in delivering service. There are numerous reasons for the gap, however, we believe two issues contribute to this gap, a) greed and b) the inability of customer relationships.
Greed Many statements by management consultant Peter Drucker are famous. However, in the book The Practice of Management, Drucker clearly states, “There is only one valid definition of business purpose: to create a customer.” Organizations today are trumped by two fundamental issues- competition and productivity. The focus is so acute that raising revenue, higher profits and increasing productivity all ignore the necessary myopia of customer concentration.
Exemplars of avarice include Starbuck’s, the airline industry and retail establishments. Anytime an organization believes they can achieve higher growth they raise fees, not one CEO or analysts stops to ask what the impact of the client is. Prior to heightened fees, customer remain for two purposes 1) either first mover advantage in the case of Starbuck’s or 2) value such as American Airlines. Yet when fees increase, customers tend to jump ship for cheaper and more appealing alternatives.
The solution for any firm is to thoroughly conduct an impact analysis to determine potential market losses. New revenue means nothing when you lose a core customer base. Customer dissonance cannot be taken for granted.
Customer Relationships Customer connections are very difficult to build- that is to say unless you are focused on your core asset. First, as mentioned earlier, an organizations entire strategy must exist for the client. Strategic questions to ask are, “Who is the customer? Why does the customer buy? What is the value that our firm provides? How do reach disseminate product, service and announcements to our customers? These questions all told focus all beliefs, all values and all attitudes for the company asset. Further, it is imperative to treat the client as such- an asset. Nothing happens, no one gets paid and the electricity does not provide power to the plants unless a customer is involved.
Herein are several techniques to align with your clients-
Refrain from CRM. We do not challenge the power and functionality of Customer Relationship Management. Yet too much resource is placed into these trivial software systems. Stop trying to augment human interaction with software. Just like a political candidate if you desire to press the flesh then do so, do not leave an email to chance.
Interaction. The proliferation of the Internet and technology has taken away the most precious asset of any relationship- interaction. Avatars such as Proctor and Gamble and Southwest Airlines discovered long ago that the better part of customer service is being there! Get off your carcass and stop administering start speaking. Make it a plan to meet with your clients as often as possible.
Enculturation. The entire organization must holistically focus on customer service. Everyone must focus on one thing, why you are in business. Exemplars here are FedEx where the culture suggests, everyone’s employment is based on guaranteed overnight delivery.
Value and Brand. There is little doubt that a housewife buys appliances for service. She buys because of the experience others have had. Speed, cost and service become part of the customer experience relative to value. Cadillac and Coca Cola have become industry standards because of this success. Not many claim to be the Taurus of the business.
Avatars and Advertising. When the service you provide is so strong, your established customer base speaks for you. When the time arrives that prospective clients speak higher than your advertising creating new customer arrivals, your customer gap is immensely narrowed. Crocs the apparel company created a billion dollar entity with little advertising.
Value Again it is so important. What does the customer consider value? The default is price but this is untrue. Price is only part of value. The concept of value is complicated and rather than surmise, the only person to respond is the customer himself. Management must refrain from board meetings and speculation, if your organization desires the response then ask the customer.
Feedback loops. In addition to client visits, ensure success with Customer Briefings, Focus Groups, Interview, 360 feedback and other imperative mechanisms. Customer Service is not one-dimensional and requires that organizations connect the dots between what they learn about customers and what they currently offer to customers. This also includes organizational functions and customer response times.
The roads to customer service and customer loyalty are rocky, uncharted and complex. And, today’s competitive matrix further complicates the issues. There are numerous paths to take and numerous bridges that must be built to close the gaps. However, the most imperative is not discussing matters in the boardroom and leaving the issues amongst the silence. Broken promises are the missing puzzle pieces as they become the keys to future growth. Customer gaps are filled when the culture of the organization from top to bottom, exemplify with admiration and energy an emphasis to a key corporate asset- the customer.
Posted by Capital Remodeling, Inc.
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