The cost of customer service is minimal when the following is considered:

1.) It costs five times more to go out and get a new customer than it does to maintain a present customer.

2.) 91% of customers who complain will not buy again.

3.) If a complaint is handled properly, within 48 hours, 82-95% of these customers will return.
Why is customer service so poor in so many companies?

Companies are inwardly focused, not customer focused. This means that companies tend to be product/service driven, not customer driven.
Furthermore, companies see customer service as an extra and generally as the responsibility of only front-line personnel. Excellent customer service is not often measured, recognized or rewarded.
In order to be successful, we must sell our goods and services at a profit and still satisfy our customers.
If we satisfy our customer but fail to make a profit, we will soon be out of business.
If we get the profit but fail to satisfy the customer, we will soon be out of customers.
The secret of doing both lies in the word SERVICE. Service means doing something so valuable for the customer that he is glad to pay a price that allows us to make a profit.
Keeping your customers happy is probably the most important job your company has.

If customers feel good about your company and the products or services it provides, they will not only be less inclined to switch suppliers, they will be more inclined to increase the amount of business they do with you. In today’s hyper-competitive marketplace, keeping customers happy requires more than just “doing your job.” You must make customers feel that they are getting what they paid for, and more. And you must avoid becoming complacent and taking customers for granted.
How can you go about keeping your customers happy? Here are four steps that will move you in the right direction:
Stay in regular contact with customers.
This could mean regularly calling them on the phone to “check in” or making sure to meet face-to-face occasionally as appropriate. Another idea is to send along articles you may read in trade media that relate to your customer’s business. It also means responding immediately to calls from customers. One of the most irritating things to customers is not being called back in a timely way.
Seek out specific feedback on your company’s performance.
Don’t just ask generally, “How are we doing?” Ask instead, “What could we be doing more effectively? What specifically could we be doing to make our product or service more valuable to you?”
Continually develop new ways to add value.
Customers tend to have short memories and are inclined to ask, “What have you done for me today?” Your job is to continually improve your product or service, and to let your customers know what you have accomplished. Write them letters, or send out newsletters. Customers want to be reassured that they are buying from people who are constantly adding value.
Avoid adversarial relationships.

When conflicts threaten to flare–such as over prices or delivery schedules–try to discover the real cause, rather than getting your back up. It might be said that while the customer isn’t always right, the customer is never wrong, or at least should never be told he or she is wrong. You may not be able to do everything the customer asks for, but at least give the impression that you are listening to complaints and trying to rectify them.
Keeping your customers happy is much cheaper in the long run than finding new customers. And it is the secret to growing your company.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/456071

It should not, however, be considered a one-time or annual event. Customer service training is an ongoing process that needs to be incorporated into the organization’s culture and way of doing business.Good customer service training will be based on the needs of your organization as well as the skill level of your employees. Following are some key elements in ensuring that your customer service training efforts get results.

1) Start with the end in mind. What do you want to accomplish with your customer service training efforts? Your answer will be unique to your business, the product or service you provide and the type of customer you serve. For example, if you run a dry cleaning business, your expectation may be that customers are greeted promptly when they come into your store, that clothing is cleaned to their specifications and that any problems or issues are resolved according to prescribed policies/practices that have been clearly communicated to customers.

If you run a consulting business your customer service expectations may include lengthy interactions with clients to clearly determine their needs, identified check-points throughout the consulting process, etc. Regardless of the specifics, the point is that you need to have a clear idea of the end results you’re looking for. Then you can use these results to help direct the focus of your customer service training efforts.

2) Define success. Employees need to have clear expectations; they want to succeed, but they need to know what success “looks like” and how you will be judging their efforts. Based on the objectives you identified, quantify as best you can measures of customer service success. Provide these measures to employees as the goals they will be charged with obtaining.

3) Communicate your expectations – be specific. Don’t assume that employees know what you expect in terms of service. Be specific and make sure you “catch them early.” A new employee’s orientation is the time to let them know what your service expectations are.

4) Provide the tools that employees need to serve your customers. Employees need tools, and need to know how to use those tools, to serve customers effectively. For example, if employees don’t have access to e-mail they may be hampered in communicating effectively with their customers. Or, if a graphic designer doesn’t have the latest software and appropriate hardware, he or she may not be able to provide high quality or timely turnaround to clients. A cell phone may be a critical tool for a sales person who is frequently away from his or her desk.

5) Let employees know their limits. Your employees need to know your policies and practices with regard to satisfying customers and responding to complaints. The more flexibility you’re able to offer and the more clearly you communicate these guidelines, the better able employees will be to meet customer needs. Customers benefit, too, when employees are able to resolve situations “on the spot” instead of having to “talk to my manager.”

6) Gather common situations and scenarios to use as examples. Your customer service training should be “real.” Examples gathered from the real life experience if your employees can help to highlight bad/good/better/best examples of working with clients and customers. Involve employees in providing training. Enlist the aid of your most service-successful employees in training and coaching others.

7) Role play common challenging situations to provide employees with an opportunity to “practice” their responses. Then, when a “real situation” occurs they will have a higher comfort level about their ability to respond effectively.

8) Encourage employees to talk to their “worst nightmare” customers. Customers who are most demanding, who complain the loudest or who are hardest to please can be a rich source of information in your customer service improvement efforts. After all, if you can please these “tough customers” you should be able to consistently delight your average customers. Behind the complaints and the demands you’ll often find very valid points and issues that you can use to improve service. Resist the urge to “ignore” the tough customers; consider them your best resource for good information on service improvement.

9) Share failures – celebrate successes. Don’t just focus on successes. Don’t just point out failures. You need a good balance of both failure and success stories to build a strong service culture. Staff can learn from their own failures as well as the failures of others. Treat each failure not as an opportunity to “punish” staff, but as an opportunity to learn. Why did the failure occur? What could be done differently next time to avoid such a failure? What lessons might other staff learn to avoid these issues? Similarly, take time to celebrate your successes and to share these success examples with all employees. Sometimes the best “customer service training” for staff can be a good debriefing of either a positive or negative customer situation. These debriefings can also be good opportunities for role playing.

10) The most effective training? The example you set. Your staff will watch not only how you interact with customers, but what you say about your customers. If your attitude toward customers is disparaging, this sends a very strong, negative, message to employees. Make sure you’re being a strong role model – both in word and deed.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/2265642

With continued attention on customer service, customer retention, and lifetime value of the customer, it is no surprise that contact center operations continue to increase in importance as the primary hub of a customer’s experience. The contact center is still the most common way that customers get in touch with businesses. In fact, Gartner reports 92% of all contact is through the center.

While much attention has been focused on the technology and benefits of providing multiple channels for customer contact, little consideration has been directed to handling the human part of the equation–training Customer and Technical Service Representatives to field more than just telephone communications. With the explosion of e-commerce, the need to reinforce keeping the human element in the equation is paramount. Certainly now more than ever before in history, customer-centric service is a necessity.

Twenty five years from now customers will still be human beings, still be driven by desires and needs. Virtual environments do not create virtual customers. Except for the simplest transactions, some customers still need to be connected with and nurtured by a live person. Amazon.com has learned this. They employ hundreds of traditional customer service representatives using phone lines to help customers with questions that cannot be dealt with online.

With the ability to handle simple transactions available by using sophisticated, self-service technology, customer calls, faxes, and/or e-mails are more complex, more complicated, sometime even escalated, heightening stress levels.

At the same time, research has identified the Customer Service and Technical Representative as one of the ten most stressful jobs in America today, with job stress costing employers an estimated $300+ billion yearly in absenteeism, lowered productivity, rising health insurance costs and other medical expenses (up from $200 + billion just ten years ago.)

A recent NIOSH study reported that 50% of employees view job stress as a major problem in their lives–double from a decade ago.

Lines of demarcation have blurred and change is rampant in today’s center. Why? Because of our cell phones, voice mail, faxback, PDA’s, and e-mail. We are now more available and accessible than ever before. The lines are no longer clear as to where our jobs or projects begin and end–they can follow us home again and again.

In today’s competitive marketplace there is little difference between products and services. What makes the difference–what distinguishes one company from another–is its relationship with the customer. Who has the awesome responsibility for representing themselves, their companies, perhaps their industry in general? Front line representatives.

The ability of a company to provide human-to-human connections–back and forth live communication–continues to be critically important. The fact is voice is the most natural and powerful human interface, real time or otherwise. That isn’t going to change any time soon. To the customer, people are inseparable from the services they provide. Actually, the person on the other end of the phone is the company. It is no wonder, then, that companies with superior people management, invest heavily in training and retraining, reinforcing the human element.

Yet customers still leave. The latest statistics on why are:

o 45% because of poor service

o 20% because of lack of attention.

This means that 65% of your customers leave because of something your front line is, or is not, doing.

o 15% for a better product

o 15% for a cheaper product and

o 5% other

This is the good and the bad news. It’s bad news because that’s a high percentage. On the other hand, it’s good news because there is something you can do about it–it resides on the human side.

It is agreed that people, process, and ‘state of the art’ technology are what make companies work. For me, the people process is most important. After all, it’s the people who truly make the difference.

Never lose sight of the fact that we are human beings, not merely ‘human doings.’ The fact is 70% to 90% of what happens with customers is driven by human nature, having nothing to do with technology. Technology is meant to enable human endeavors, not to disable them.

Extraordinary service or lack thereof, separates the good from
the great companies. As more and more organizations are turning to the contact center as a strategic player in the competitive landscape, it is in the throes of re-inventing itself to step up to the plate and become the heart of a company’s customer facing operations.

Empathetic Responsiveness

The ability to put yourself in another person’s shoes and see their point of view–not agree with them, not make them right and your company wrong–but hear what they are saying. After all, basic needs of all of us are to be heard and treated with dignity and respect.

I think of a call as an ABC process. ‘A’ represents the customer presenting their question, request, complaint or problem. ‘C’ is the ultimate resolution. Most times ‘B’ is either skipped or left out–because of metrics, calls in queue, or simply because you know the answer before the customer is even finished speaking. ‘B’ is where the agent acknowledges what they hear–be it upset, anger, frustration, or fear. Or, a simple ‘thank you for taking the time to call and bring this to our attention.’

After all, if a customer calls in to complain, you have the opportunity/challenge to turn them around. If they don’t call, and only complain to other people, you have no opportunity. Does going through ‘B’ take longer? Not at all. It allows you to move the customer to a more productive interaction and close the call. I’ve heard many customers repeat their opening paragraph (A) over and over, while at the same time the agent is trying to get them to resolution (C). Red alert! Red alert! Acknowledge what is behind the words and you will move them quickly to ‘C.’ I believe you can’t go from A to C without going through B.
If all customers wanted just the facts (and some do), they could ascertain the information online. Most customers (people) want the human interaction, someone to hear them, someone to care. A simple, “I’m so sorry that was your experience. My name is Rosanne and I’m going to do my best to help you right here and now.”

Self Service

When asked the question in a recent study, “What is the biggest barrier your company encounters to self-service effectiveness?” only 14% of the customers replied they don’t know about it.’ This means that the 86% who do know about it and attempt to use it (1) find it too hard to navigate, (2) can’t find the answers, and/or (3) don’t trust the system or the answers they do find.

Research shows that customers prefer to deal with companies who are the most consistently accessible. When customers experience a level of service from email and chat support, for instance, that equals or exceeds voice support, then and only then will they gladly migrate to those channels to resolve their problems and inquiries.

To increase customers’ satisfaction, be sure to:

1) Phone: Have a ‘zero out’ option on your system

2) Website: Have your phone number or a button to speak with a human

3) E-mail: Rephrase the issue in the opening paragraph.
Purchasing Process

In an interview with Delia Passi Smalter, the former publisher of Working Woman and Working Mother magazines, we found very interesting statistics regarding female demographics (Incentive Magazine, 2003). It seems that women are making over 85% of consumer purchases and influencing more than 95% of total goods and services. Smalter distinguishes the purchasing process women and men go through. The biggest one, she says, is that women need to feel more of a connection to the TSR; they need to trust the corporation and the brand. Price becomes secondary. Women take in a lot of information, including recommendations from friends and family, company and brand reputation, feelings about her contact person, and how the brand will impact her life. Not so for men. Men take a systematic approach, allowing outside influence to some degree, but mostly they are focused on price.

One of the most influential documents in the world, the U.S. Constitution, begins with “We, the people…” Yes, ‘we the people’ are what makes the difference.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/20314

5 of the BEST money making ideas

1. Affiliate marketing – If I were to gamble a guess, I would say that at least 70% of the people who earn money online do it through affiliate marketing. This is simply a method in which you sell other people’s products or services and earn a commission or flat rate per action. You can do this through a website, a blog, or even using online classified ad sites.

2. Blogging – Keeping a blog is not only one of the best ideas to make money from home, it’s FUN! Talk about anything you like, as long as your blog is focused around one subject such as raising kids, cooking, golfing, sports, weight loss, beauty – whatever topic you like. Make money with your blog by including affiliate links and banners, along with a few Google Adsense ads.

3. Freelancing – Are you good at writing, photography, graphic design or building websites? For nearly any talent you have, you can find a need for it on the internet. Website owners are in constant need of new articles and content for their site; some have no idea how to create a great logo or graphic, and others need someone to build links in to their website. Freelance work is an excellent way to make money from home!

4. Customer service – If you’re good on the phone, know your way around a computer and have a good rapport with people, there are many companies looking for customer service representatives. Many of these opportunities allow you to work from your own home, and the flexibility is great.

5. Surveys and “paid to” offers – You may not believe that you can actually make money taking surveys and giving your opinion, but you can. All companies, especially those large corporations, need input regarding their products and services so that they know how to improve them. They also need to know what people want so that they can best service the customer – which increases their bottom line.

These are just a few examples of money making ideas that will help you replace a full time income or just earn a little extra cash. Today, there is no reason that anyone who is willing to work can’t make money from their own home! From the easiest to opportunities with a bit of a learning curve, you can be one of the millions who sit in their own homes quietly growing their fortunes. Ready to find out more?

We offer the BEST money making ideas you will find, guaranteed! If you’re looking for ways to make extra money or earn more money than you ever dreamed possible, we’ll show you the most popular methods used to make money at home online today! Be sure to visit our work at home blog for more great ideas!

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Teresa_Tackett