Customer Care Tips . Info (tm) - The Meeting Planner's Online Advantage: 7 Ways to Cut Down Customer Service Issues

Customer
Care
Tips

NAVIGATION >>>

Customer Service and Call Center Outsourcing, What's The Buzz?
The buzz is all about customer service and call center outsourcing, also known as BPO (Business Process Outsourcing). According to Gartner, the outsourcing market in Europe has grown with over 6%, BPO with 10%. The market for offshore outsourcing (to low...Continue

Customer Service: Beyond Company Policy
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 department...Continue

Take Care of Yourself Before You Take Care of Your Customer
One of the most important questions people ask when they are focused on improving their quantity and quality of business is: “What is my competitive advantage? What makes me unique, memorable, special… what truly sets me apart from the rest?" While there...Continue

Ten Customer Service Secrets to Win Back Customers
Recently I was facilitating an Outstanding Customer Service program and broke for lunch. Knowing that the restaurants in the area had much to desire as far as service I gave the students an extra fifteen minutes for lunch. Sure enough a group of four...Continue

The Voice of Customer Service: The Sweet Sound of Telephone Support
Customer relationship management tools abound, yet let's hear it for old technology. Your voice is the most multifaceted customer service tool in your toolkit. Your voice can convey concern, care and compassion. It can alternately convey boredom, neglect...Continue

Why hasn't customer service improved despite the profusion of databases and technology?
Let's not get confused here. Databases and technology are tools that we can use in our businesses. There has been a lot of emphasis on Customer Relationship Management recently which is very much about using this technology. But what has this got to...Continue

The Meeting Planner's Online Advantage: 7 Ways to Cut Down Customer Service Issues

Meeting planners can dramatically reduce customer service issues by getting their attendees' information right, with personalized, consistent communication and by getting the payments handled efficiently.

7 Things You Can Do NOW with a Fully-Automated Registrations System to Improve Your Customer Service:

1. Get contact info right the first time. There's nothing more frustrating to a registrant than when an event organizer gets their information wrong. Each instance in your process where you manually enter or transfer data poses a risk for making errors. Using an automated system, which has everything built-in (online registration, accounting, badge printing), eliminates all data entry and data transferring issues.

2. Be sure that payment information is correct. When a registrant thinks they are registered because they gave you their information and credit card number; then finds out a week or two later their charge did not go through; stress is created. You can automatically processes credit card transactions in real-time; so there is no miscommunication.

3. Send impeccable follow-ups. Registrants like to know that everything is being properly handled with their registration and your event. When they don't hear from you after they register, they get worried. Automatically send confirmation and reminder emails with a personalized touch.

4. Keep track of numbers daily. Events can go wrong when an event organizer doesn't know the details of their event numbers on a daily basis. Real-time awareness of lack of demand or hyper-demand for different aspects of your events, allows sufficient time to make alternate preparations. Automated online systems make it easy to tally registrant data on a daily basis.

5. Organize your information. If you are managing your events with multiple spreadsheets or systems, you know it can be difficult to stay organized. If information gets lost or falls through a crack, it eventually becomes a dissatisfied attendee. Avoid unhappy customers by using a fully-integrated system... it should have all of the systems built-in: registrant preferences, accounting, badge printing and reporting.

6. Automate the waitlisting process. Registrants don't mind things being sold-out when there is a well-communicated waitlisting process in place. A good registration system automatically provides a waitlist for registrants then notifies them the instant a spot opens up. If they accept the open spot, then their payment is automatically collected as well.

7. Eliminate frustrations with early-bird specials and discounts Registrants love to ask if they can get early-bird specials and discounts for which they know they do not qualify. They hate to hear "no" and you hate to say it. A fully-automated system qualifies everyone for the appropriate discounts, so you don't need to.

About the author:

I sincerely hope this article makes your conference and event registration even more successful!

Bill Flagg is the President of RegOnline

P.S. If you would like to receive more tips like this via email then sign up at http://www.RegOnline.com/eTips