| |
| |
|
Customer Service Information |
|
|
|
Poor Customer Service - Are Your Customers Driving Away Other Customers
Every customer you have is a word-of-mouth advertiser for you. Unfortunately 90% of this free advertising is negative. Your goal is to get positive-word-of-mouth advertisers. Think about it, how do you decide where to shop? Your chief consideration may be location or price, but service is a silent draw that cannot be overlooked. Years ago we went to a get our oil changed at the Citgo station at Rochester and Hamlin in Rochester Hills. The owner was in tough competition with the established shop across Rochester Road. We were first in line and the shop really did achieve their time goal as we were pulling in the bay in just over 5 minutes. To our surprise the owner came to the window and offered us free pop because of the "long wait" on a hot day. He also offered lollipops to our children after getting our permission. It is now ten years later and every oil change on both cars have been done at his shop. What was his cost? Two cans of pop and two lollipops. To be honest I cannot tell you how his price compares to the shop across the street, but I don't care. Anyone that takes care of the customer like he did on our first visit has integrity and places customer service as a top goal. Not only has he received our total business, we also told this story a hundred of times to friends and at conferences. Word-of-mouth is a very powerful advertising tool. With competition as intense as it is today people are looking for ways to determine at which of the many resources available to spend their money. The emphasis on word-of-mouth advertising is getting a lot of attention at colleges in and near Allentown, Pennsylvania. College freshmen can now go to several Internet sites to determine into which professors class they should strive. The sites list comments about the professors posted by former students. Although the colleges say the sites do not agree with the evaluations they are receiving at the end of the classes, the sites have increasing in the number of web hits they receive. According to Christina Gostomski of the Allentown Morning Call (May 16), students like the sites because they want to make sure they aren't wasting tuition dollars. Word-of-mouth advertising is also recognized by Google as having max impact, and they have the results to prove it. According to Forbes.com (May 22) the Internet advertising company built their new service, Adwords, on word-of-mouth advertising. "The response was so enthusiastic that by February 2002 Adwords had been extended to all Google listings. It grew to 100,000 bidders in ten months, and thousands more advertisers are still signing up." according to Forbes. Increasing positive-word-of-mouth requires that one is in tune with the customer. There are two facts that work against this free form of advertising: 1. Negative word-of-mouth advertising is ten times more common. Unfortunately people are more likely to talk bad than they are to talk well of an organization. 2. Unsatisfied customers are not likely to make their feelings known. While it is true that some are overly vocal, the majority tend to keep quiet. To identify unsatisfied customer you must be alert to their tone of voice, how they walk out of your place of business, whether or not they look you in the eye, and (perhaps most importantly) does your place of business say, "Welcome, we're glad you're here!" As for the vocally unhappy, conflict resolution skills are vitally important. A business person must be on there "A" game every time a conflict arises, and they must be equipped to handle the problem. The type of word-of-mouth advertising that your organization receives is totally up to you. Now that you know you will receive word-of-mouth advertising, as evidenced by the college professors and Google, you must make a choice as to how prepared you will be to influence the ads themselves. Rick Weaver is President of Max Impact, a national leadership and organization development company based in Rochester Hills, Michigan. Rick is an accomplished business executive with experience in retail, market analysis, supply chain and project management, team building, and process improvement. He has worked with hundreds of companies to improve sales, processes, and bottom-line results. MaxImpact offers leadership and organizational development services along with employee assessments and background checks. Contact Rick at 248-802-6138 or via email, rick@getmaximpact.com. MaxImpact is on the web at http://www.getmaximpact.com.
MORE RESOURCES:
Customer-Service - Google News |
|
|
|
RELATED ARTICLES
Should I Have My Company Mystery Shopped? I wish I had a nickel for every time someone said to me, "Oh, you do Mystery Shopping; I always wanted to do that!" I think most people do find the thought of posing as a customer and reporting back on how they were treated, rather intriguing. But there is a lot more to it that skulking around in a trench coat and spy glass!I believe most companies have taken the plunge and decided that it really is important to conduct frequent "mystery or secret shops" of their businesses. Dealing with Difficult People 1. Don't get Hooked !!!When people behave towards you in a manner that makes you feel angry, frustrated or annoyed - this is known as a Hook. What You Need to Know About CRM 1. It's all about the customer. Making The Most Of Newsletters Newsletters can be wonderful tools for communicating with your customers or prospects. Because of their format, they're often infused with more credibility than traditional brochures. 4 Easy Steps to Better Online Customer Support Customer support is very important when you're running a business, whether your business is on or off the net. If your customer support is hopeless, you'll soon find your customers running away from you and worse, telling others to stay away too. Identify Your Silent Customer Service Message With the growing number of people in every business sector, doing business requires creativity and ingenuity. The entrepreneur that understands the importance of thinking differently is the entrepreneur that sees their businesses growing. Customer Service Has Moved Toward Customer Care As I waited for an answer to my VCR inquiry from a stereo company, the recording stated a "customer care" representative would be available shortly. At that moment, I realized it's finally catching on everywhere. Outsourcing: The Unspoken Costs Outsourcing seems to be the new-new thing and approximately 50% of our major corporations are doing it. What are the costs? The benefits? And what skills need to be managed in order to make it work optimally?Let's get a clear understanding of what we mean by outsourcing: it's the shifting of easily codified jobs - such as help desk support, call centers, system maintenance, and programming jobs - to countries that can manage them more cheaply. Committed To Your Customer? Prove It When They Complain! Businesses like to brag in their advertising about quality of work, commitment to their customers, and excellent service. These statements are also proudly advanced in Mission, Vision, and Values Statements. Whatever Happened To Customer Service? Do you remember the last time you went into a shop and the person 'serving' raced over to you, greeted you with a lovely smile, heaps of enthusiasm and said, "Welcome to our store, what can I help you with today?" And then listened attentively to what you had to say?Doesn't happen very often does it? In fact, while I was writing this, I couldn't recall when I had experienced it. I'm sure I must have yet it would have been so long ago, I can't remember. What Every Employee Should Know About How to Win the Loyalty of Customers Dr. Michael LeBoeuf, in his cassette album entitled, Win Customers and Keep Them for Life presents twelve principles that will transform the workplace into a customer-driven, highly motivational team. Who Says the Customer is Always Right? We all know the old adage, "The Customer is Always Right." If you are an online business owner or offline for that matter, you are on both sides of the subject almost everyday. Importance of Good Customer Support in Online Computer Peripherals Shops Looking for hi-fi computer peripherals? Finding it tough to decide on the product you need to purchase? Not sure about the models that are available? Not sure about the configuration that would best suit your need? Worried that your budget might not fetch you your long dreamt hi-fi? Just relax!! There are many great world class online computer peripherals shopping centers. They offer you not only the best computer peripherals but also friendly online help in their world class online computer peripherals shopping sites. The Consumer Power While most companies talk about consumer friendliness, customer centricity, customer relationship etc. more often than not they are mere lip service or jargons with little sincerity behind these grand sounding words. Customer Service A Chickens Way Anyone who knows me knows my favorite fast food restaurant is Chick-fil-A. Aside from the fact their chicken is especially good and I can always get sweet tea, I have a valuable business reason for eating there - they serve up amazing customer service. One Critical Question to Ask Yourself Every Day What happened to the old saying, the customer is always right? I'll bet every one of you reading this article has a "customer service nightmare" story to tell. My most recent nightmare experience took place recently when my business partner and I went in to a wireless phone store to purchase two new pda wireless phones. Get Customers to Stop Calling You--12 Easy Ways to Save Money with Online Customer Support Despite rumors to the contrary, the Web is not dead. More people are using it, they have faster bandwidth, and in many cases Net-time is taking over TV- time. What Do They Want Anyway? You want customers. I want customers. The Death of the Loyal Customer One of my classes in management focused on the repeat customer. The course stressed the importance of the repeat customer to the financial welfare of the business. Automating Your Customer Support My regular readers will know that one of the things I highly recommend doing with any online business is automating as many of your day to day tasks as possible.From a personal point of view, one of the tasks that takes up a lot of my time is answering emails.
|
| home | site map |
| © 2006 |
