Customer Archives - GUJRAT INDIA

Three Dimensional View on Customer Satisfaction – Are You Successful in Delighting Your Customers?

Customer satisfaction is indeed one unique aspect, that makes an organisation enjoy the privilege of having loyal customers. To satisfy your customers is a big deal, and unless you put your heart and soul into the process, you cannot strike the right chord. It is much easier said than done. In simpler terms, we say we are satisfied, when we get, what we perceive. In business terms, satisfaction has many more dimensions to it. Statistics tells you the number of consumers in your area, but, to convert them into your customers is the real challenge. Are you geared up to delight your customers and retain them forever by giving something extra, that your competitors are incapable of!Then you are the master of your own game of business. But, mind you, the intentions should be noble.

Everwin corporation is planning for a big leap in the aviation industry. The chairman, Mr. C, wants to make his airline service to be the much sought out “low-cost and customer oriented”. He needs to prove to the whole business world and particularly to his arch corporate rival, “Dart and Tart airline carrier’s”, managing director, Mr. Jacomino lutafa, that he can reign supreme in any venture he chooses. This is one quality in Mr. C, that his employees are much amazed about and sometimes annoyed. Is there really a need for him to supersede somebody? He is a multi billionaire and tops the Forbes list every year. But, I tell you, this is the kind of attitude we witness in many of the hard core businessmen who try to surpass themselves, in every opportune moment. The passion for achievement, changing the impossible into possible makes them take up the challenges into their stride.

Coming back to the story, Mr. C, aptly named his airline carrier as “Everwin Aviation”, and now I’m able to see that there is a corporate board meeting going on in the chairman’s cabin and it is called the “Caramel” named after his wife. I really appreciate Mr. C’s love for his wife, he tries to exhibit it in every possible move. The conversation was aimed at transforming their airline into number one position and the probabilities for enhancing the services through recruitment and training processes. Nik, the lovely lady in her thirties, the personal assistant of Mr. C, was all ears for what was transpiring across the table and the efficiency was apparent by the deft movement of her fingers over the notepad like lightning strokes.

Well, everybody were trying to speak parallelly and at once that irritated the chairman, Titan, the chief executive tried to bring the situation under control by addressing the gathering louder, “Hi Folks, Let’s not waste our precious time. Everyone of your contribution is important to this discussion and let’s hear it from you, one by one. Even let’s not waste our time and I’ve summarised the discussion and the outcome for your convenience.

Aircrafts could be leased for the time being, until, the company stabilises itself and reaches “breakeven, “to cut down expenditure.
It was decided to recruit and select people who had positive attitude and focus on customer service.
Resourceful training sessions to the pilots, in-flight attendants, people involved in air-craft maintenance, people involved in booking etc. ,
A training centre to be established under the control of Human Resource Personnel Department.
Design of the aircraft must be unique and express the mission, let’s say, “We will fly you through”.
Refreshments and food of the highest quality
Defined and refined behavior of the in-flight crew, a pleasant ambiance for the commuters
Attractive promotional offers, like, complimentary stay in a five star hotel suite, if you book tickets in first class.
Ultimate focus should be around safety, security, satisfaction, entertainment and honor.

Mister Dumpy, the CEO who should’ve chaired all these proceedings woke up with a sudden start. Alas, his dream was cut off in the middle by the commotion created by the discussion. Mister Dumpy the dumbest, did know the knack of sleeping with his eyes well open. That comes under the highest science of yoga which many of us can’t get hold of. He had listened to the discussion only from half-way, so you cannot blame him for his suggestion to include, bacon egg and cheese sandwich for breakfast in the aircraft menu.

Now, Mr. C’s airline carrier is the best that covers the length and breadth of the Pacific and the Atlantic.

The Advantage of Using Feedback Form to Improve Customer Service

Feedback Form is one excellent medium for gathering comments, suggestions and customers’ views about your business. It is a good way of knowing how you are faring in your customer service.

If you have a feedback form attached to your website, you deliberately provide a gateway for continuous customer engagement. Of course, it is assumed that garnering more information from your customers through the feedback form means that you are actively responding to the information submitted to you.

With the ongoing trend where most of your customers are buying or shopping online, it is very important that your website has feedback form. It is also important that you must be candid about how you deal with the feedbacks being submitted to you.

Make sure that your feedback form is accessed easily. Offer several ways in which your customers could give their feedback. The customary feedback form will do but you must also provide email address, fax number, mobile and land phone. You may place an invitation for your customers to visit you personally if they wanted to.

Customers would be delighted to read your gracious attitude when after they submitted the feedback form they filled up a message of appreciation would pop up to welcome their comments. This creates the impression that your customers have great part in shaping your business as you express your gratitude and you are happy to act on their feedback.

Some sites provide animation and video to spark the interest of their customers to fill up the feedback form. For them, getting feedback from their clients is their way of gauging how they may improve their customer service. It is also through this feedback mechanism where they learn about the status of their products, especially those newly launched.

Feedback form could be presented as a poll where customers could tick their choice for the specific matter that you are presenting. You may opt to provide venue for discussing further their opinion.

Take note that you must be able to collate the information gathered through your feedback form and provide immediate actions, especially to feedbacks that need urgent response.

Expect more customer engagement when they are getting responses for the feedback that they submit to you. Meaning, you must clearly state in your website how your company responds to customer feedback. Present a customer-friendly feedback policy that is easy to read, understand and follow.

Don’t fret about the thought of being inundated with customer feedbacks, the effort and expenses to process the information. Think about what your business can gain successfully in your customer service engagement if you have a solid feedback form system.

Find the interactive feedback form that provides complete portal for getting customer comments and suggestions that is vital for improving your customer service engagement. Make use of innovative customer feedback form program that enables you to process and update information that comes through your site and other media.

Getting Started With CRM (Customer Relationship Management)

It amazes me how many businesses or midsize company sales or service departments that do not take full advantage of modern CRM (Customer Relationship Management). Either they are using an ancient version with limited capability or they still rely on paper based processes. Some have invested heaps of money in a full ERP solution with supply chain, finance and human resource automation, but have never integrated a front-end sales and marketing solution.

The competition in the marketplace in general and from Microsoft and SalesForce in particular have made entry level CRM possible for all size businesses and departments. With all players focused on cloud based solutions and each offering their own set of integration options, there are many ways to spend very little money to get started, making it possible to invest and build on your solution as results are gained. Gone are the days of a twelve to twenty four month implementation plan before results can be gained.

CRM is intended to be a full life-cycle solution for managing customers from marketing to after sales support. The below is a sample sales solution that can broadly be implemented within five days and cost you less than $10,000. This give you a foundation to build onto. If you select a cloud based solution, you only pay on-going license fees based on usage and have no upfront hardware costs.

The functionality below are some of the areas you can consider implementing for under $10,000. Costs are kept in check by “time-boxing” the solution. The idea is to offer a time based solution that involves the key stakeholders to get a solution going within a week.

Sales Automation:

Account, contact, opportunity and activities
Basic workflow
Customisation of Objects and Fields
Data mapping, transformation, migration and data validation
Notes and Attachments
Lead Management, Routing and Assignments
E-mail templates and tracking
Analytics, reports and dashboards
Product catalogue
End user training

Note there are many areas not included in the above, such as territory management, full life-cycle management, contract management, customer portals, Service dashboards, etc., but the above is more than enough to improve your business and establish a foundation for the future.

The five days roughly include:

Day 1: Initiation and Analysis including a design workshop

Day 2 & 3: Configuration and Review – prototyping a solution based on design workshop for immediate feedback, allowing time for minor changes.

Day 4: Data Migration

Day 5: Training and Wrap-up

We are not promising a perfect solution, but instead a usable software that allows room to maximum staff efficiency in rolling out a foundational improvement to managing your client life-cycle.

Give your local technology partner a ring for more information.

Benefits of Customer Feedback

Often times, small business owners are not generally pleased to hear of a customer that appears to be unhappy with her product or service. It’s understandable, I mean who wants to be told that their relentless effort, time, and sacrifice has yielded results that simply did not meet the expectations of the one paying their salary. Yet, when considered with the benefits in sight, customer feedback can contribute to the success of your business.

Improve Existing Products or Services

Customer feedback can help you find weak spots in an item you are currently marketing and/or selling. Perhaps during the design phase of your product or service, a simple step or viewpoint got overlooked. If so, it will without a doubt surface when a mass of people begin using it for the first time. This is an important time to get feedback.

When a customer discovers an issue and reports it, you have a golden opportunity to inquire about the conditions surrounding the issue, the mindset of the customer when they tried the product, or the methods by which they were using your product or service. In any case, the information you obtain from the customer at this time can tell you exactly what you need to change in order to make your offer even better.

Market Research

Feedback from customers on an existing product can give you new insight on that item or offer. Yet the reverse is also true. Existing customers can give you insight on a new product or service.

Before developing a new product or service, find out from your existing customers what features they would use. Do they have suggestions on the best way to implement it? What target price would they be comfortable with? Answers to these and other questions can help you define the path you should take when developing a new product. Taking the right path, in turn, with contribute to your success.

Free Advertising

Another great benefit to gathering customer feedback is that it can give you free advertising. We’ve all seen the testimonial blurbs on commercials and websites. No doubt you would agree that a recommendation from a third party carries more weight than the one selling the product. Not only because of the higher trust factor involved, but also because the individual is a customer and has used the product. The more natural the testimonial appears the more weight it carries. Giving your customers the opportunity to freely express themselves regarding your product can be one of the best forms of advertising you can get – the free kind!

All in all, customer feedback is directly related to how you view it. If viewed as a valuable tool for benefiting your company, it can yield great results for you.

Boost the Productivity Within Your Business by Using Customer Relationship Management Software

The software is a company device designed to allow you to automate and organise your sales, marketing and customer services. This is undoubtedly an integrated system in which you are allowed to enter customer details once, which in turn is available to all your departments and sales team. As a built-in software system you are able to effectively keep track of buying habits, and analyse the available information to action into your service plans and marketing strategies.

Running an analysis of your information usually provide excellent leads and give you the information you need for existing clients. In the past this tends to take months even years to examine, gather and analyse – nowadays CRM software will do everything for you, even when you sleep!

Small business normally has to outsource its marketing. With CRM software it is possible to save lots of time and money by integrating with social networking websites, blogs and the Internet in general. Let technology do all of the time consuming work for you by producing pertinent information in accordance with your demographics and necessities. More people these days as well as other small companies are investigating online. Companies along with their services or products are mentioned openly and freely and this negative or positive feedback is available. Being in front of your competitors by ‘crowd sourcing’, you’ll be able to use products and techniques that speak instantly to your ideal audience.

When researching for a software vendor or product, you ought to have a clear strategy of what sort of implementation you need and more importantly what your budget allows. For a small company, the price of installing new hardware to support your extra software may be prohibitive. Many vendors are providing a subscription service with Web-based tools, or as is now known as ‘cloud computing’. This service is accessed by using a secure Internet connection. Alternatively, buying pre-designed CRM software and installing on your current network is another financially viable option. You might need the flexibility of starting with your system being hosted off-site and then as your business evolves, bring it on site.

Sustaining an expanding enterprise from small to medium can be tough. What used to be manageable by a few people can turn out to be progressively fragmented as your business evolves. The software may help you handle these concerns by streamlining and automating details. In the past, difficulties and service delivery problems were kept in-house. These days, with information freely available on the Internet and social media websites, one slip in any department could be global news within a few minutes. Creating as well as preserving brand loyalty is a philosophical shift for small business.

If you have assessed your small company needs correctly, you should be able to measure the return on investment (ROI) of your CRM software. On the other hand, all tools have their purpose, if not used properly, the results can be confusing.

Used properly, you will detect significant time and money savings after operating your small business on CRM software. The general purpose is to keep current clients whilst looking for new revenue streams as well as being able to assess customer relationships in real time, which is essential in business development strategies. By implementing CRM software into your business you will obtain the competitive edge in your industry and climb to the next level more quickly.

Take Your Customer Service Dept From ‘Cost Saving & Cost Reduction’ To High Profit & Business Growth

The more communication I have with people involved in telephone service and sales, such as Contact/Call Centers and Customer Service Departments, the more amazed I become at the reluctance to create more sales and profit opportunities through better interaction with current customers, reactivation of lost accounts and new business acquisition.

Companies are forever seeking ways to cut costs and reduce staff – particularly so in Call/Contact Centers (turning so many into ‘Call ‘n’ Wait’ disaster zones) – they often fail to see what rewards they can achieve by using the following formula:

1 humble telephone + 1 skilled operator + 1 established sales system = HUGE PROFITS!

Here are twelve ideas that can dramatically improve your bottom line RESULTS build greater customer RELATIONSHIPS and earn you (a company of any size and industry) more REVENUE.

1. Build the loyalty of your current customers

A ‘no brainer’ right? Why is that so many customers cannot get through to you, when it suits them?

Why are you constantly offering free incentives and reduced prices to gain new business?

CRM is meant to be the new service elixir. Well it is worth nothing if you don’t listen to your customers.

Here’s an example – in the last six months or so, a metropolitan daily newspaper has offered ten-week subscriptions for $39.90 (I pay more and have subscribed for 20 years), contests (win wine if you subscribe, see a rock group in concert!) and give-aways to induce new subscribers. Me, I get some sort of special club membership with the odd discount or special offer. But hey, so do the new subscribers! Who’s ahead?

2. Gain referrals from current customers

The cost of losing customers is almost incalculable. Add to that the people they tell about their bad experiences and the people they never refer to you.

Instead, offer your current customers a total strategy of satisfaction and benefits. Then, encourage them to tell others.

Don’t reward these referred customers (but do give them total satisfaction and benefits). Do reward your current customer for their referral. Develop a system that will encourage customers to tell friends, family, their customers and associates about you and then say ‘thank you’ or offer them something of value for their efforts.

3. Add VALUE to every sale

Here is a really simple equation: If you give value – you get more sales.

That’s it. If your people are trained to offer advice and information, educate customers, offer them creativity and innovation then your customers will buy more products and services, more often.

Even if your prices are slightly higher. This was the IBM way, back in the 60’s and 70’s with some great lessons to be learned. IBM charged the steepest prices in the industry but their service and support was legendary. The phrase ‘no one ever got fired for buying IBM’ originated way back then.

4. Turn an enquiry into a prospect

Then, turn that prospect into a customer. Then turn that customer into an advocate, one of your company’s ‘raving fans’.

All you need are trained people, a system and a monitoring and measuring plan. Simple? Yes it is, and like all things mentioned in this article, I will bet that some of your people excel at this and a number of them perform basic courtesies with callers – and that’s it.

5. Create an upsell program

One becomes two. Two becomes four. Four becomes … greater than the GDP of Argentina.

It is so simple, easy and effective and so few organisations employ this strategy. Many of your people don’t do this because they think the additional cost will put the customer off. It doesn’t. Not if the customer actually sees the benefit of greater quantity or improved quality.

6. Cross-sell at every opportunity

What can your people add on the original purchase? Extended warranty, on-site service, insurance, a savings if they purchase an additional item(s), a special offer or other options?

If everyone in your organisation upsold and cross-sold at every given opportunity, your sales would soar. I have witnessed increases of between 15-45% in companies where a simple upsell/cross-sell strategy was installed.

7. Negotiate on price

Don’t just offer a discount or ‘best price to you’. Let me reiterate, if you give value – you get more sales. Negotiate price. Train your people that by dropping price, they are giving away margin. So, if you offer a discount negotiate an upsell and/or cross sell. Package or bundle your offer to make it attractive and a genuine customer benefit.

8. Follow up

Every time your people give a quote, send a proposal or brochure out via fax, mail or e.mail, they should record a follow up timeframe.

Between one hour and three days. Everyone who requests information should be followed up by telephone. This leads to a higher close or conversion rate (I have witnessed 20-50%) or, if they have purchased elsewhere – your follow up call may be the commencement of a relationship … or not. But you won’t know if you don’t follow up.

This rule should also be applied to complaint management. Most companies have no follow through with people who have complained.

9. Adopt a ‘keep in touch’ program

What can you do for your customers that will allow you to contact them on a planned, regular basis?

Special offers, new product or service introductions or …? The best forms of ‘keep in touch’ are e.mail combined with a regular phone call.

But be warned – you should have a purpose for every call you make or email you send. Don’t just bombard your customers (and prospects) with garbage.

10. Develop a systematic approach to lost customer reactivation

The longer you fail to make or maintain contact, the likelier you are to lose customers forever.

If you check the most recent contact vs previous contact frequency, you can detect a lost or about to be lost customer. Do something to regain their business.

This is the most costly part of your operation – the lost customer, the lost referral.

Do you have a lost customer reactivation plan?

11. Gain new customers

Why are there so few high quality telemarketing divisions in companies? Certainly, the ‘T’ word is considered dirty and grubby in some quarters and indeed it can be. However, where you have trained professionals, comprehensively developed objectives and strategies why wouldn’t a well run telemarketing campaigns gain new business and new relationships for your organisation?

Quality telemarketing will generate leads, open up new business channels/market segments, build business with small, marginal and distance customers, give you real value (as a follow up) from exhibitions and seminars.

This is one of the most under utilised resources for business acquisition (and reactivation).

12. Develop and work your system

Success will come in all of the previously mentioned guidelines, tips and hints if you adopt a systematic approach. That is:

a) A sales and service oriented contact management system, based on a quality CRM package.

b) Well trained people who consistently add value to and gain value from every call they take or make.

c) Monitoring, Measuring and Reviewing each of the above and seeking continuous improvement both in contact management and people skills.

It is simple and what’s more, it works. Use the power of the humble telephone (and quality people) wisely, and you will gain great RESULTS: Relationships and Revenue.

In a Shaky Economy Customer Retention Must Yield to Customer Acquisition

You’ve read the startling statistic that is recited with astonishing frequency and variability:

“It will cost your company “6 times less” or “10 times less” to keep an existing customer on the books than to acquire a new one.

We might quibble with the precise numbers, but it would appear to be a bedrock truth that saving customers, or more to the point, not losing them, is worthwhile.

By itself, that is a valid statement. Why lose business, unless it is bad business, but that we’ll save for another discussion.

When customer retention initiatives are pitted against marketing and selling, trying to add accounts to the books, I start to squirm. Especially in a poor economy such as ours, given a choice, it would be a major mistake to redirect resources from customer ACQUISITION to customer RETENTION, which is really what the startling statistic implies.

In a dire economy customers and clients will leave the fold for reasons that have nothing to do with factors you control. Their own business models may be under pressure, or suddenly become obsolete.

For example, let’s say you sell exercise equipment to gyms, which in turn sell memberships on a subscription basis. As long as memberships are increasing, there are available funds to support entering sales contracts for your stair climbers and resistance devices.

But when that membership pace slows, the payback on investment looks prohibitively remote, so you can’t sell the machines nearly as easily, if at all.

Catering to consumer skittishness, gyms begin to offer “no contract” memberships, and suddenly they look to you to lease or to rent your machines on an equally short-term basis.

If the trend continues, more gyms will be shuttered, and fewer start-ups will replace them. Your business will be in dire straits, unless you can ENLARGE THE MARKET for your exercise platforms.

That involves marketing and selling, perhaps directly to corporations; at least to potential buyers that have never appeared on your radar before. Comparatively, every dollar you throw after the declining gym sector in an effort to retain your customers, is wasted.

Don’t get me wrong. I have been selling customer satisfaction programs for years, and I am a complete zealot when it comes to treating your current supporters, well.

However, if they are an endangered species, on a short path to extinction, you need to find a suitable substitution, and fast.

Treating them luxuriously will not create any more where they came from.

This is one of the sad truths that explains why customer service staffs are cut back mercilessly in economic downturns. Service personnel are wonderful at supporting yesterday, but out of their depth in creating tomorrow’s profits.

But it is foolish to let their experience and customer sensitivity vanish.

Retraining non-salespeople to sell isn’t always successful, but it is worth the effort and resources. After all, they know your company and product inside-out, they don’t have to be recruited, and you can focus on the one skill everyone needs to put to work: selling.

What is Customer Segmentation?

Like so many buzz words in business & marketing, “customer segmentation” is one of those terms that is interpreted by folks to mean many different types of things. If the word “segmentation” were blurted out in a room of 20 business people, chances are it would conger up 20 different images.

So what is customer segmentation, and how can it be used to propel one’s business?

Segmentation defined

Customer segmentation is a method for grouping customers based upon similarities they share with respect to any dimensions you deem relevant to your business – whether it be customer needs, channel preferences, interest in certain product features, customer profitability, etc.

The key is for you, the marketer, to first decide on what basis you wish to segment your customers (or prospects for that matter). And, the only way to answer this question is to first determine what your objective is for the segmentation, and thus what you want the segmentation to “do for you”.

Common segmentation objectives

Common objectives for segmentation include but are not limited to: the development of new products, the creation of differentiated marketing communications, the development of differential customer servicing & retention efforts, channel strategy, and the maximization of profit/ROI for existing products.

Once you have decided what your objective is for the segmentation, you can answer the question, “what do I want the segmentation to do for me?”

A brief example: segmenting for customer winbacks

Let’s say you worked for a subscription-based magazine such as Time Out New York (TONY). Your boss has asked you to optimize TONY’s retention strategy utilizing the current save tactic of sending people who have recently canceled their subscriptions (aka “attritors”) 1 of 3 “win-back” mailers. This existing save tactic has been employed by TONY for the past 2 years, and the method for determining which attritor receives which mailer has been based largely on “intuition” (aka random selection).

Your first step in undertaking this project would be to clearly state your objective. Your objective, as per your boss, is to optimize TONY’s retention strategy for recent attritors. This is shorthand for saying, “I want you to maximize your return on your retention-dollars invested”.

Without getting into the nitty gritty of the approach, what you essentially want to do is determine the relative ROIs for each of the 3 mailers at the individual attritor level. For each mailer, you then want to identify those attritors with high ROIs (i.e., those attritors who re-instated their TONY subscriptions after receiving the mailer and provided you with future profits that well-exceeded the cost of the mailer).

Next, for each win-back mailer you want to identify those attributes which the high-ROI attritors have in common, essentially creating a profile for “high-ROI attritors” for each mailer.

The final step is to operationalize the three profiles you’ve created so you can use them to determine which of the 3 mailers, if any, to send to future attritors. This essentially entails implementing a process in which new attritors are matched up against the 3 profiles to determine which, if any, best describe them.

A more sophisticated approach would be to build predictive models that would calculate the expected ROI for each mailer for each attritor, and then send out the mailer with the highest expected ROI to the attritor. And, for those attritors in which all 3 mailers have negative expected ROIs you might choose not to send any win-back mailers.

Closing thoughts

In closing, segmentation can be tricky and complex, and no doubt requires a great deal of expertise & experience. Putting in place flawed segmentation strategies can be far more detrimental to a business than not having them at all. However, when designed the right way, segmentation strategies can provide tremendous returns relative to one-size-fits-all approaches.

Who Decides Good Customer Service?

“Hey, Joe, your service stinks. Get this kid a chocolate milkshake.”

Those are the words I heard as a kid on my first trip to an ice cream parlor near where my grandmother lived. Back then, there were no special people or computer programs needed to determine whether or not a business provided excellent customer service. Customers were ready, willing and able to tell you when things did not measure up to their satisfaction.

Today, businesses large and small use “experts” to tell them if they are conducting business the way they should.

Sometimes those experts are the accountants who pour over the financial records. Accountants can tell a business owner if he/she is making money, and for some that is the only requirement in determining if a business is successful.

Sometimes the experts are companies that provide mystery shoppers to check on the business. The shoppers report on cleanliness, employee interaction, the ease of being a customer – from the way the store is arranged to the amount of time standing in line to make a purchase.

Of these two methods of determining whether or not a business is customer friendly, the latter is more reliable. Still, some employees can spot a professional “shopper” and will provide better service when they think they are being watched and graded than they would have otherwise.

The best determination of a company’s true standing in the community is from the persons that it serves. Why, then, do more companies not ask their customers for feedback? Why are companies not interested in developing programs that bring customers back?

Asking customers to complete short surveys makes more sense than hiring a company to provide lengthy ones completed by expert shoppers. Customer loyalty programs work. What does a company lose by offering a repeat customer a small percentage off? It certainly costs less to keep a good customer than it does to advertise for new ones.

Providing incentives to customers for introducing their friends to the business could make a difference in sales and profits. Rewarding existing customers with a small token of appreciation for helping establishing a greater customer base also costs less than advertising for more traffic.

It is said that a satisfied customer will tell few, if any people, people about his/her shopping adventure. That could certainly change if incentives were provided.

A dissatisfied customer wants to shout to the world when he/she is shown disrespect, ignored, or cheated.

The fact remains that the customer is only real determining factor in measuring the success or failure of any business. Why is that so difficult to learn and understand?

A neighbor who returns again and again to the same auto repair service is a good indication that excellent and fair service is provided. Anyone can get someone into his or her office or store once. Getting repeat business is what helps a business grow and thrive.

What does that take? Actually, providing good customer service is quite simple.

1) Answering the phone – promptly and courteously.

There is nothing more discouraging to a customer than to have a phone ring and ring without being answered, or worse yet, getting a busy signal. When the phone is answered, you want to hear a pleasant voice on the other end, not someone who sounds as if you are interrupting something far more important than your call.

2) Keeping promises.

If you cannot keep a promise, it is far better not to make it. Reliability is a key to keeping a relationship – business or personal – going.

3) Showing respect to customers.

If you ask for feedback, make sure your customers know that you are listening and using their thoughts and opinions. Show interest in what your customers say; don’t act like you’re bored with them.

4) Making returning merchandise or making complaints a pain-free endeavor.

If you have a no return policy, make sure that information is provided when the purchase is made. If you have certain requirements that must be met for a return, clearly indicate that to the customer. And if a customer complains, don’t make him feel like he is wrong or stupid. A good return or complaint procedure may bring that customer back again and again.

5) Offering suggestions even when you cannot provide the service or merchandise your customer seeks.

Remember the movie “Miracle on 34th Street”? Sending people to Gimble’s did not hurt Macy’s in the least. In fact, it endeared customers to Macy’s for being so helpful.

6) Showing, not just telling.

When a customer is looking for something, taking him to the aisle instead of pointing is helpful. Demonstrating the differences in products, in the way they work or in pricing, also shows that you value your customer.

7) Giving something away.

As you complete a transaction with your customer, give them a reason to return, whether it is a coupon for a future discount or an invitation to come back with a friend to receive an extra gift.

These simple acts will show customers that you are serious about keeping their business and can bring in more customers than advertising, new promotions or price-cutting.

In the old days, the ice cream parlor owner probably just asked, “Hey, Bill, how am I doing now?”

And the customer responded, “Better, Joe, much better.”

Perhaps the world is a more complicated place now. But does it really have to be? The principles that kept a customer returning have not really changed. “The Miracle on 34th Street” was made in 1947. Sixty years later, we would still all like a Kris Kringle to send us from Macy’s to Gimble’s if Gimble’s has the better price or product.