BMGT 245- Customer Service Lanny Wilke

We talked about Imperative Number I, which dealt with staffing your organization - the importance of finding and retaining high quality people.

Good Service is Whatever the Customer Says It Is N = 1, and not just for the high- rollers. There are many things you should know about your customer: –Best time to call. –Birthdays –Hobbies –Interests

What else would it be good to know?

In “Fabled Service,” author Betsy Sanders indicates... Why companies lose customers: –1% Died –3% Moved Away –5% Influenced by friends –9% Lured away by the competition. –14% Dissatisfied with product –68% Turned away by an attitude of indifference on the part of a company employee.

Segmentation and niche marketing means... That we absolutely, positively must know our customer…. Not just their names and faces, but everything about them. We must know what motivates them. We must know what’s important to them.

Loving & Romancing the Customer Love is a much stronger word than “like” or “appreciate.” It is this strength of commitment that spells the difference between ho-hum service and Knock Your Socks Off Service.

Not only must you have intimate knowledge of your customers, but …. You must change as your customers change. In fact, it is often argued by those in Marketing, that your organization can actually drive the changes taking place.

Good Enough….Isn’t

If 99.9% is good enough, then... 22,000 checks will be deducted from the wrong bank accounts in the next 60 minutes. 1,314 phone calls will be misplaced by telecommunication services every minute. 12 babies will be given to the wrong parents each day.

268,500 defective tires will be shipped this year. 20,000 incorrect drug prescriptions will be written in the next 12 months.

Listening is a Contact Sport

Listen, Understand, Respond Looking at someone while they speak is not enough. You must actively seek to understand what is being said. Those who really listen are long remembered by both customers and friends.

Seven Ways to Listen to Customers’ Face-to-face. –Spend some time on the front lines listening to your customers, firsthand. Comment and Complaint Analysis –customers often want to avoid confrontation. Cards to fill out allow them to do so.

Customer hotlines –quick and easy….unless you don’t have enough people to handle the calls and then tell your customers how much you “value their time” while you put them on hold.

Frontline contacts –Allow every member of your organization the opportunity to interact with your customers firsthand. Customer Advisory Panels –Use them like a board of directors. –Make sure you listen and take action.

Mutual education –Help your customers understand how to do business with you. –Teach your customers how to best utilize your products. Formal research –Surveys, focus groups, telemarketing contacts, mystery shoppers, demographic analysis, random sampling of target audiences.

“Listening is useless unless it creates actions which realign efforts based on what is learned.” - Fred Smith - FedX

A Complaining Customer is Your Best Friend

Not only should we appreciate the complaining customer... We should actually encourage complaining. Remember, the complaining customer is giving us a chance to keep their business.

Why do customers vote with their feet? They don’t think we care. They don’t have any hope. They don’t have the courage. Remember, even if they don’t tell us, they will be telling many, many other people.

Customers who are satisfied come back 90% of the time. “In other words, complaining customers who are properly handled can become even more loyal than customers who have never had a problem.”

Making Complaining Easier When you have the opportunity to talk to the complainant face-to-face, listen. Treat complaints about your customer contact people as an opportunity.

Be assertive in soliciting customer feedback. Encourage your frontline people to ask for feedback. Use negative feedback to improve performance, not punish people. Don’t take sides.

Remember it’s in the details. Little Things Mean A Lot.

Remember... Attention to detail means remembering that details are at the heart of the Moments of Truth. Manage these moments well and you will excel. Manage them poorly and…clip, clop, clip, clop.

It is important that you.. See and evaluate your services the way your customers do. Customers consider process and outcome. What they get and what they go through to get it.

Deal with the details. Send out service patrols. Begin your journey at the same place your customers begin. “You don’t improve service and quality in general. You improve service and quality in specific.” - Rodney Dueck

Building Service Partnerships Nurture service relationships into service partnerships. –A more complete and deeper commitment is required. –Not all customers want to participate.

A service partnership is “at risk” on three occasions. When the relationship is beginning, or during the “dating stage” when it begins to solidify (alignment). When an error or failure has occurred to challenge it (blunders). When there is a change impacting the relationship (change).

Managing in each of these stages During Alignment –Work toward long-term relationships. –Collaborate –Get personal

During blunders –ask for feedback. “Fix the customer, then the customer’s problem.” –Blunder management must have a human-to-human reconnection. –Anticipate that things will go wrong.

During change –anticipate changes and plan ways to deal with them. –Honesty and openness is the key. –Remember to celebrate your partnership.

Guess what time it is...

I’m guessing…. You figured it out. See you next time. Same time, same channel.