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8 Critical Steps to Establish a Customer Service Culture
Upon reflection, most all of my interactions with displeased customers were not the result of a poor product, but rather a disappointing customer experience. Why is that? Because, product is not personal, customer service is. Briefly, I...Continue
Customer Service: A Matter of Common Sense
There's more to customer service dealing with order fulfillment, returns, complaints and questions. Good customer service is based on respect and concern --- qualities that can't be spelled out in a company policy. Consider: The managers of two...Continue
Customer Service - The Infection of Mediocrity
In recent months, I've had the worst experiences with my phone
company, the post office, my bank, fast food drive through
services, the grocery store, department stores and local gas
stations.
I expect to receive what I pay for. I expect that what I...Continue
Putting The Serve Back Into Customer Service
Good service is easy to spot and hard-to-find. Mediocre service occasionally stands out but only because it's the cream-of-the-crap. Last week I had the opportunity to speak at the Lumbermen's Merchandising Corp. annual sales meeting in Dallas. The meetings...Continue
The Golden Rules For Providing Good Customer Service
Last night I was at my computer and a Skype chat window opened up with a link in it from a stranger. I clicked the link and was taken to one of those "You would have to be crazy to pass up this business opportunity" sites. You know, the kind with great...Continue
What the Taco Bell Manager Taught Me About Customer Retention
I didn't plan to get a marketing lesson. I really just wanted a steak chalupa! But as I went through the Taco Bell ordering line, my day took an interesting twist. I've always been one to give compliments when they were due. So, after receiving repeatedly...Continue
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10 Customer Service Quality Statements to Measure up Against
Customer service is a fundamental quality that every business must have. The higher the standard, the higher the return on the investments you make. But just how do you measure your performance, in an easy-to-use way? It's really quite simple...
It might sound quick and simple, to say how well your business does in satisfying it's customers. Hearing such as:-
"We're increasing our turnover by 14% year to date"
"Our customer complaints are now less than 4% or our transactions"
...might sound like music to your ears, but that's just the time you need to be very careful.
A regular measurement of where you are as your organisation, not depending on some of the easy-to-fake figures, might just make the difference in how well you are doing now, and into the future.
Try these quality statements and set up a mechanism whereby you review them monthly - yes, that's right, monthly. This needs to be thorough and objective. And maybe even the scores made by a cross-section of your people in all areas of your business - then you get objectivity and a true picture of how you are scoring. It is a great activity to score each of these out of 10, make a tracker month by month and each time you review, ask yourself the question:-
"What would we need to do to move our score up by 3 points"
Do it point by point and then, after you have that 3-point question, work out a monthly action plan, so that step-by-step, you gradually improve. Then and only then will your improvement be sustainable and you can reset the questions over time to a higher standard. Then you truly will be The Best in class!
The Quality Statements:-
- We use a variety of staff to monitor customer service on a regular and consistent basis
- We know and can clearly state our customer groups
- We listen to customers about our products and proactively seek to redress issues
- We notice and congratulate our people and teams when they perform well
- Senior management are fully and visibly engaged in customer activities
- Our people enjoy the challenge of changes
- Our organisation and our people have aligned values
- Our customers find working with us easy and pleasurable
- We know how our people feel about working here and always respond to make it better
- We have teams and individuals who can respond quickly to changes circumstances, whatever they are
Keep a track of these - visually represent it somewhere very publicly for your people. Involve many of your them in monitoring, finding solutions and taking accountability for change, where needed and your business, your people and you will thrive.
One final point. Starting is good, being able to demonstrate your success in 12 months is another thing - as is still doing this review in that time.
About the Author
© 2005 Martin Haworth is a Business and Management Coach. He works worldwide, mainly by phone, with small business owners, managers and corporate leaders. He has hundreds of hints, tips and ideas at his website, www.coaching-businesses-to-success.com. (Note to editors. Feel free to use this article, wherever you think it might be of value - with a live link if you can).
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