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KristineS
09-01-2008, 10:16 AM
I run customer service for the companies for which I work. I have some pretty strong feelings about what makes good customer service is and what bad customer service is. Those are my ideas though. I'd like to know what the rest of you think. It's possible my definition is missing something.

What do you think makes good customer service? Also, if you run your own business, how do you enforce those ideas so your company gives good customer service?

Leatherneck
09-01-2008, 02:03 PM
I try too run a real tight ship when it comes too customer service. I feel it is just as important or even more then the quility and the value of the product or service you provide.

My list could go on and on, but I feel the most important isuue is to be sincere with your customer or client from the first time you meet, and even after your done with the service you perform. To many businesses treat you like royaty untll the job is done or the sale is made. Then they act like they never saw you before. I have news for people like that they will never get my business or recomendation ever again if i get treated like that. I don't care what there price was. A little smile and kindess can go a long way.

KarenB
09-01-2008, 03:31 PM
Kristine, I also have some very passionate feelings about customer service.

As a large part of my business is based on providing quality online customer service on behalf of my clients to their own customers, I've given this a lot of thought. I guess my position is twofold: providing quality customer service to my own clients AND providing quality customer service to their clients!

In my recent blog post: "Above Average Customer Service - The Key to A Successful Online Business", I made the following suggestions:

1) Respond within one business day.

2) Don’t hesitate to ask for more information.

3) Always ask for their results.

4) Don’t dismiss the rude customers—nurture them.

5) Don’t try to do it all yourself.

Like Mak said, "A little smile and kindness can go a long way." That human element can definitely make or break your successful interaction with that client, as well as the following word-of-mouth recommendations that follow.

People just want to be treated like...well...people, and as people who matter and count as individuals. I don't think that businesses are built on the masses...they are built one satisfied client at a time.

KristineS
09-01-2008, 03:31 PM
I definitely think you're right Mak. Companies that court you until they've got your cash never get anywhere with me.

What's sad is that a company that does follow through nowdays is the exception rather than the rule. I think a lot of people are just conditioned to expect indifferent customer service. That's why this area is such an opportunity for companies that are really ready to step up their game.

KristineS
09-01-2008, 03:33 PM
People just want to be treated like...well...people, and as people who matter and count as individuals. I don't think that businesses are built on the masses...they are built one satisfied client at a time.

That sentence should be put up in every call center everywhere, Karen. It's so simple but that's exactly what good customer service people need to remember. You're dealing with another person who just wants to be heard and respected. Great point.

orion_joel
09-02-2008, 02:31 AM
I am not really sure if this point comes in as customer service or sales. Anyway i worked in retail sales of electronics for about a year. One thing i always did was be 100% honest with the customer. If they came in looking for a specific model or range of feature's i would make sure that was what they got, where a lot of the other sales people would often spend twice as long trying to upsell the customers to a higher model or the top model, at the end of the day, i closed more sales. Admittedly many of those sales may have been lower value sales, but there were more then a few customers who would come in every couple of weeks, either to buy something or even just to find out what the new gadgets were, and some would even just wander round for 10-15 minutes if i was with another customer. Very rare i saw that for any other sales person where i worked.

Leatherneck
09-02-2008, 05:54 AM
I would really appreciate your honesty and sincerity if you where selling to me. Especially if I really didn't know what I need or want as far as the bells and whistles, and you took your time and explained to me the differences in what I was trying to purchase. That type of customer service goes a long way with me.

KristineS
09-02-2008, 11:09 AM
I think that's definitely part of good customer service Joel. Being honest about what you offer and helping the customer get what they want, not what you want to sell them, is terrific customer service. As you found out yourself, it also ultimately nets you more sales as well.

KarenB
09-02-2008, 03:03 PM
...but there were more then a few customers who would come in every couple of weeks, either to buy something or even just to find out what the new gadgets were, and some would even just wander round for 10-15 minutes if i was with another customer.

Bingo! I think you nailed it, Joel.

Why did they wander around waiting for you? They trusted you. You didn't try to upsell them on something they didn't need and you treated them the same way that you would want to be treated in the same situation.

Sometimes companies do the blast and bombard customers with the "upsell", perhaps hoping that their clients won't remember all of the extra features that they purchased to begin with. I've seen this happen a lot, especially online. I can't even count how many extra features I have purchased and have never used because I simply don't need them. (Lesson learned.)

I'm okay with upselling if it is specifically geared toward something that a client might need, but not as a party line given to *all* buyers, regardless of their needs. I think that this eventually will come out in the wash and people will get a sense of being "ripped off" and won't come back to you if you practice this way of selling.

Selling and customer service go hand in hand. I think that most buyers nowadays have fully learned, "Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me." Not one of us can afford not to be that savvy these days.

Dan Furman
09-02-2008, 05:57 PM
I'm prettymuch a one-guy operation, so my way of doing things may not apply to every business. But my rules of customer service go like this:

1) Try to eliminate the need for it in the first place by providing excellence in what you do. In simple terms, I do what I say I am going to do, when I say I am going to do it, and I will do it in the matter that I promised. It's been my experience that most business CS issues are because the preceding was not done. Either something was late, something didn't work as advertised, etc, etc.

2) Having good documentation helps a lot. For example, I provide a "read me first" with every writing project that addresses key points of the project. It also has a standard laundry list of items that someone might have a question about (like I point out that MS Word might show a grammatical error, like a fragment, that I actually intended. This eliminates phone calls asking why MS Word knows more rules of English than I do :) )

3) If the above two do not work, I take each customer service issue personally, and quickly solve whatever the problem is. And if it means a refund, that's what it means (it almost never gets to this point. But it has happened before, and I ate a few days work because the customer and I misunderstood each other... but bottom line, that's my fault.)

orion_joel
09-03-2008, 01:58 AM
Dan, this is how i think any one man/small business should work on customer service. Where i think customer service mainly fails is where the company gets bigger and expectations are not properly communicated to all levels of staff, in a way that they understand it properly. For example i by default took my outlook on customer service because i had come from my own business that i knew what i needed to do to ensure the customer was happy. But a lot of retail sales people do not have this grounding and just think they have to make sales for as many dollars as they can, which often ends up back firing on them.

orion_joel
09-04-2008, 01:08 AM
Hmm, this was the last thread i posted on and was sitting on the screen still and when i read back over it i just thought of a really good example of customer service, that one of my previous manager's told me and i am guessing a lot of other people.

There was this guy who owned a coffee shop, and had one customer, an older gentleman that came in every day, and ordered just the daily special, for about $5. One day the owner was in the shop, and saw one of the new staff, get this customer to wait while he serviced a group of people who was waiting behind this customer, who had a full meal and drinks. The owner quickly went and attended to this regular customer, so he did not have to wait. Later on the new employee asked why this customer was so special that he cared more about him then the group that had spent a lot more. The answer was to the effect that this gentlemen comes in every day, while the group of people he had never seen before, so in the last year this regular customer had in fact spent much more then the group who came in once.

The whole point though was not to discount the value of service to anyone customer over over another, but to emphasize the point of consistent, customer service. So if a regular customer has to wait because someone else was actually in front of them, they can understand it, but if they are caused to wait because an employee thinks someone else is more important because they are spending more, then they may not be so regular for so long.

KristineS
09-04-2008, 09:54 AM
I like that story. I think it also illustrates the value of getting to know your customers. I have a grocery store in town that I'm very loyal to because I've gotten to know a lot of the staff. It's just in a casual sort of way, but the cashiers always say hi and we chat for a minute when I go in to make a purchase. I feel welcome and acknowledged when I go there.

I've now moved across town, but I'll still drive the extra few minutes to shop at that store.

Leatherneck
09-04-2008, 04:48 PM
Nice story Joel, and I agree with you Kristine. I grew up in a real rural town many years ago when most businesses seemed to make service there number one priority, and you could tell for the most part they where sincere about it.

It is harder too find that same feeling today with most businesses, so when I do it makes me feel good to know there are still some of us left that sincerly care about our customers.

KristineS
09-04-2008, 04:51 PM
We consistently go above and beyond for our embroidery supplies company, and I can't tell you how many people are impressed when we do the simplest things. Even something as simple as responding promptly to a question. That's a basic of good customer service. How sad that some companies don't even bother to do that anymore.

orion_joel
09-05-2008, 01:39 AM
I think so much of customer service comes back to more then how the company as a whole handles it but down to the level of the employee. This as i said is where i think so much of the systems that are put into place fall down.

Now i have never personally been to a Walmart store, because i live in Australia, where there is none. However from what i have read, the customer service in store seems to be fairly poor. While i am sure that they probably do have a full policy which out lines how their employees should handle customer service. I can definitely understand how it may be difficult to motivate someone to follow these sort of procedures when they are being paid minimum wage. At the same time, i think it tends to fall more to the point that the level of service is what people tend to expect, and could not be bothered to complain, because they do not expect that it would help.

I have found the level of service has been really dropping more and more all the time over the last few years. For example just yesterday i was in three different stores looking at laptop computers. It really is time that i look at upgrading the one that i have as i am finding the battery just does not last as long as i would like. I spent about 10 minutes looking at the different models in each store, and did not have one of the staff in any store come up and ask if they could help me.

Store one - had 2 staff, 1 of which walked straight past me to a customer who had come in after me.
Store two - had about half a dozen sales people in the area, 1 was with a customer 2 were straightening shelves, and the rest were having a chat about the weekend.
Store three - had two sales people who were just wandering around, taking no interest in customers.

Now i do not know how they are training people in retail these days but when i started in retail my first assumption was that you greet every customer and ask if you can help. Which i did, unless i was already with another customer, i would often break a conversation with another employee just to ask a customer if i could help them, and to me this conversation could always be picked up at any point in the future where a customer was only in the store for a limited time.

KristineS
09-05-2008, 08:14 AM
I've had that happen too Joel. Or worse, been in a store looking for something and can't find an employee anywhere.

I think in the minds of a lot of people lower prices = less customer service. I know that's the case with Wal-Mart. You don't go there expecting a great shopping experience and knowledgeable staff, you go there because it's cheap.

Plus, as you said, I think a lot of people have just given up. They don't expect that complaining will get anything fixed, so they don't bother to complain. It's really kind of sad.

myemployee
10-08-2008, 06:06 AM
One of the techniques I employ in customer service are the ones outlined in the book: Secret Service by John R. DiJulius. It's a great material.

KristineS
10-08-2008, 08:50 AM
I've never heard of that book. I'll have to check it out.

Thanks for the recommendation.

BillR
10-08-2008, 11:08 AM
I do consulting as many of you know...

What I actually do though is help set up IT Service Management software for large corporations. For example right now I am in San Fran doing work at a bank.

Customer service is composed of several things. I would suggest they include the following:

1.) MOST IMPORTANT THING - Setting and agreeing on expectations. I am out in SF right now because I am fixing a project that got off track. Why did it get off track? Expectations got out of skew. What the customers wanted delivered was not what we were expecting to deliver. I am fixing that.

2.) Knowing your customer - This works differently for different businesses but I will bet a zillion dollars that every business is more successful when it knows it's customers and has repeat business. And by "know your customers" I mean you want to know LITERALLY every single thing about them. I worked with a sales guru once who gave us a sheet of 50 questions. He said that if you want to know your customer you needed to know everything on this list. He also said he expected his sales guys to get the information from new customers with the first week. It was stuff like this:

1.) Customer's full name
2.) Name of spouse
3.) Name/Ages/gender of kids
4.) Birthdates of all of the above
5.) Pets
6.) Sports teams they like
7.) Where did they live?

...and so on. You get the idea.

Now - how do you get that information? Not by calling the person up and grilling them - but instead by taking them out to dinner. It's really not that bad. You get a new customer or prospect and tell them you really like to get to know your customers and want to take them out to dinner/golf/whatever. Tell them you take lots of notes - ask them questions -and the shut the hell up. People LOVE to talk about themselves. It is their favorite topic.

Now, obviously, you have to scale this up and down according to your business. If you have a coffee shop this is not realistic for you. But you get the idea....

3.) Admit failure of service and explain your plan to fix it - No business delivers 100% of the time. When you fail call your customer ASAP and tell them the problem. Also tell them your proposed solution (and make damn sure you have one ready) along with any compensation you are offering. Some may get mad and leave. That's life. Most will be impressed because you are a) accountable, b) responsible, and c) responsive.

I prefer working with people who admit their failings and try to fix stuff ASAP.

4.) Service your target market - don't chase every lead. If you have a coffee shop and someone walks in and asks for a bottle of water you might just start carrying that. But what if they want a beer? That's clearly a totally different road to head down and it makes little sense to go that way.

Same goes for any business - find the market you can serve well. Don't chase customers that are not a good match. And NEVER appear desperate - it drives people away crazy fast.

Also, sometimes customers are more trouble then they are worth. Be objective. If one of your people is spending 50% of his time servicing one customer at the expense of others you need to do a cost/benefit analysis for that customer and see if it's worth it. Did they buy 50% of the stuff from your guy? Good - carry on. Did they only buy 2%? Well then...might be time to go separate ways.

KristineS
10-08-2008, 12:52 PM
3.) Admit failure of service and explain your plan to fix it - No business delivers 100% of the time. When you fail call your customer ASAP and tell them the problem. Also tell them your proposed solution (and make damn sure you have one ready) along with any compensation you are offering. Some may get mad and leave. That's life. Most will be impressed because you are a) accountable, b) responsible, and c) responsive.

I prefer working with people who admit their failings and try to fix stuff ASAP.



This is so important and something at which so many companies fail. It is absolutely maddening to have something go wrong and be greeted by a shrug when you try to get the problem addressed. There are companies that have screwed orders and stuff up but I'm still buying from them because they addressed the problem and took steps to make things right. They genuinely seemed to care that I was satisfied and that made a huge difference.

BillR
10-08-2008, 02:08 PM
Yeah - and frankly you should have a plan in place prior to this ever happening so your employees know how to deal with it. They should have the authority to figure it out ASAP.

KristineS
10-08-2008, 04:06 PM
They definitely should. I think that's a root cause of why a lot of companies have such poor customer service, the employees that are doing the customer service aren't empowered to help anyone.

greenoak
10-10-2008, 08:41 PM
my theory is always under promise and over deliver....we say no to a lot of things that other companies do...like lay away, delivery, special orders, credit........it works for us...and we do what we say we will do...
i figure its an llbean world and if you say you can do something they will expect it and expect it fast and perfect...so about all i say is we are cash and carry and everything is as is where is....and i will tell you any negatives i know about ..

.the good side they can count on us in a lot of ways, weare reliable,, we have a real people manning our phone, and hopefully we have exciting inventory at great prices for them...and often some laginappe...
we are too small to go into real organized customer service..i dont like coupons, or contests, or organized loyalty programs....but i know the loyal customers.....and i hate it when someone gets less than great service....like waiting in line to pay,
i think my main service and value to the customers is to make the experience of coming to the store worth their effort....if that didnt happen a customer service program probably wouldnt help....

theAdviserMe
10-13-2008, 10:45 AM
Good customer service means when your customers are coming back to you again and again and will recommend you to others for free. :)

KristineS
10-13-2008, 11:41 AM
That's very true. Repeat customers are a great sign that you're doing things right when it comes to customer service.