The Customer Authority

If you haven’t heard of Zappo’s by now, you should have. The little online shoe store has grown into a corporate giant – and they’ve done it all on the power of customer service.

You’ve heard me talk about Zappo’s on here before and how their dedication to a customer focused culture has helped them rake in millions. Customers love this company, not just because of their products, but because of the “give-the-customers-what-they-want-and-more” attitude.

If you’ve been trying to figure out how to use Zappo’s strategy for your own company, here’s your chance.

Zappo’s will be hosting a webinar Tuesday, September 29 at 2:00 p.m., titled “How Zappo’s Built A Billion Dollar Empire Through A Customer Focused Culture”. The webinar will feature one of their Customer Loyalty Team Leaders – Senior Manager Rob Siefker – who will discuss how the company increased their gross merchandise sales from just over $1 million to $1 billion in just eight short years.

There will be a lot to learn from this very informative session, so I highly recommend this to anyone interested in increasing their company’s success through customer service excellence. (Which should be ALL of you if you enjoy reading this blog!).

Here’s the article about the webinar. To register, go to the company’s registration page here.

I read this article today that touched on a huge pet peeve of mine. I like to scour the want ads out there for customer service positions, just to see what the market is currently like and how our industry has been affected by the economy.

One of the things I often see is what is effectively a sales position wrapped up in the guise of “customer service representative”. They key to knowing this is truly a sales job is the descriptions commonly use phrases such as:

“go-getter”
“aggressive”
“self-starter”
“self-motivated”
“work for commission”
“ability to motivate customers”

You should never see any of those words in a customer service representative job description. All of these phrases are “action” oriented to get other people to do something. In a customer service position, you aren’t trying to get customers to “do” something, so much as your job is to “help” them with something. Or rather, the customer wants YOU to “do” something.

I don’t know if I’m seeing this more and more now because companies are trying to get around the “bad-word” of sales and gain more attraction to the job. Personally, I hate sales. I don’t like solicitation in general, and although I was told I would make a great salesperson, I never had any desire for the position.

But Sales is a necessary evil, and in business, it’s a good one. How else do you get people to buy your stuff? As the article points out, it isn’t all about customer service. I do agree with this. If you don’t have someone proactively reiterating the benefits of your company service or product, while you may still have sales, you won’t have them at the rate you want them to be. Sales in an active form can generate more bang for your buck and gain new customers you wouldn’t have if you’d remained passive.

And Sales is most effective when you combine it with great customer service, but it shouldn’t be just about customer service. As the article discusses, when you use customer service as your only sales tactic, you’re really only generating information, but not actively gaining assurance of a buy. As a salesperson, your job is to seal the deal and know when you walk away you just added a new customer and more money to the company’s bank. And when you have great customer service skills combined with selling tactics; that is a powerful tool right there.

However, it doesn’t work the other way around. Sales is not customer service. Customer service should be focused on assisting the customer where their problems, questions, concerns, and inquiries. Customer service is about information and communication. If I’m calling in to find out how I can get my vacuum cleaner fixed, I don’t want the rep on the phone trying to up-sell me to their latest and greatest product. If I wanted to buy something, I would have either said that directly, or simply gone to the store to purchase a new one.

Take a look at the article and see how this may apply to your company. Have your salespeople become more like customer service reps? Are you trying to use your customer service reps as salespeople, when they really should be just called Sales?

I came across this article on answering services and the values of having one. In particular, it sites the advantages to having a live answering service for your business as being:

• • Calm, confident, live operators
  • Rigorous training
  • Customized service plans
  • 24 hour support

I have to agree, on paper, those seem like pretty good advantages if you’re considering using an answering service for your office. However, the article points out, these are what the really good answering services offer. So where does this leave the rest?

Which comes to my hesitation on using these services. When it comes down to it, it’s really about the quality and integrity of the company you’re hiring for what type of service your going to get – same as any other. I would also be looking at the reasons you need to hire an answering service and what you want to get out of them.

Is your staff too busy to be taking phone calls?
Do you have a limited budget and are looking to outsource?
Is there a particular subject or question your callers ask about?
Do you feel your staff isn’t competent enough to assist with your call volume?

While these may be valid reasons to use an answering service, there could be alternatives for you to consider. If it’s really about lack of time for your staff, and limited money, is there really an advantage to hiring an outside source, or does it make more sense to hire additional inside staff assistance?

If you’re trying to save money, you’re more likely to be looking at companies that may not provide all the customer support services you’re looking for. They may just offer to take the calls and message, but they don’t do the trouble shooting or other services your customers want or need. This could be detrimental as a customer who wants an answer becomes frustrated they aren’t talking to the “right person” when they need to.

And are you really saving money? Is it more cost effective to hire outside services instead of hiring an additional assistant? What are the advantages and disadvantages to you and your company? Are you making any customer service sacrifices by hiring an outside resource? These are things to seriously consider when making the decision to use an answering service.

I would only consider using one of these services if they guarantee the same things I can and would want to provide in-house. That means thorough training so the customer doesn’t know they are speaking to someone not directly employed by the company. Someone who is knowledgeable about your companies services and can assist with questions confidently. If the provider you’re looking at can’t guarantee you at least that – move on. If the service can give you all you want and more, and it’s within your budget, then certainly check it out.

A new book is coming out called, “Who’s Your Gladys? How to Turn Even the Most Difficult Customer into Your Biggest Fan”. I just learned about it while reading an article online,so I haven’t read it myself yet, but I know I want to read it now!

It’s chock full of great advice and case studies from co-authors, Marilyn Suttle and Lori Jo Vest, on how to handle tricky customer situations, and even how to prevent them, by giving excellent customer service.

I loved this one line quoted from the book:

“While many tactics for improvement address one aspect or another of your business, what we’ve discovered is that changing how you and your staff think about your customers can make the most difference,”

So very true and I couldn’t have said it better myself. So much relies on you and your employees own attitudes to the customer. It can absolutely make the difference in the experience you will have with them, and definitely create much more positive experiences for all involved.

Take a look at the article and, if you like what you see, go out and get the book for an added bonus to your business. I know I’ll be doing just that!

A recent survey came out on what makes employees happy in the workplace. I can related to these surveys because I’ve conducted my own with my associates when I was a manager at Coca-Cola. I was always somewhat surprised at the varying answers I would receive.

I assumed, for most of my direct reports, the answer would have been money. This was mainly because I knew many of them had been working there a long time, and the job is time-consuming and demanding. Not to mention it was always the hot topic of conversation come review time when they didn’t get as much of an a pay increase as they had hoped (not my doing, but because of the on-going tightening of the budget).

So it was to my surprise that only a couple of people opted for money as what was their driving motivation. Some simply wanted recognition. Others enjoyed helping customers and the feeling of satisfaction that came with it. Still others enjoyed being a leader amongst their peers.

And according to the article, those finding coincide nicely with the typical responses the survey has received over the years.

Until now.

Apparently I’ve finally been proven right. Money has taken over the top spot of what employees want most out of their workplace. Per the writer of the story, he feel the reason is due to fear.

With the global economy the way it is, I don’t feel he’s too far off the mark. Although, in my opinion, if it were fear driving them, I would think that job security would be at the top of the list instead of compensation. And in return, I would assume most would be dissatisfied with how much they make in lieu of so many companies cutting back on bonuses and the like.

As a business owner, it’s important to know what will make your employees happy and do what you can to satisfy those needs. Knowing today that it is most likely money can be tricky. For one thing, if your employee’s mind-set is only on money, and their worry over it, this could potentially transfer into a lack of productivity and motivation.

In the meantime, there is still hope the economy will be turning back around sooner rather than later. During that time, continue to reassure your employees and help ease their fears if you know your business is still stable. Knowing they won’t be the next one in line for the unemployed can do wonders for the psyche.

(read full article here)

You may have noticed I’ve recently been posting links to articles I find on customer service. There’s a reason for this. I’ve started searching more and more for articles on customer service just to see what’s out there. Are people talking about customer service? Do they care about customer service? Is there any good customer service left – or is it all just going downhill?

The answer to all those questions is “yes”. People are talking about customer service all over and in different ways. One of the things that stands out the most is that with the poor economy, I’m finding examples of two significant things happening in customer service: It’s either getting worse – or it’s getting better. There seems to be no middle ground.

Which leads me to the article I wanted to share with all of you. This particular one was written by Jennifer Leggio, who writes a blog called Social Business for ZDNet.com, and online tech news website.

What drew me to this particular article is Jennifer recounts her own personal experience with above-and-beyond service from The Marriott Hotel – where she happened to be staying when she sprained her ankle.

While I was impressed at the level of service that Jennifer received from The Marriott Hotel, it wasn’t that which caught my attention. What I was most impressed about was that Jennifer was so bowled over by the customer service she received, she took the time to write an entire article about it and share it with everyone – on a tech website no less!

That, my friends, is the level of customer service you should always be aspiring to. Always take your approach to customer service as one where you go above and beyond the call of duty at all times. It should be so ingrained into you and your employees  it is second nature – so that when a customer gushes to you how wonderful you are and you tell them “it’s no big deal” – it really IS no big deal to you because you do it every day.

But don’t just take my word for it. Take a look at the article here and see what I’m talking about. Maybe it will even give you some ideas of your own on what you can do to reach customer service excellence.

We talk a lot about all of the new approaches to customer loyalty and customer satisfaction surveys and using social media to listen to and better engage with customers. Yet a few weeks ago I was reminded about the most important facet of customer loyalty out there… (read more)

Today I came across an interesting article in The Miami Herald, written by Nirvi Shah. It was all about how South Florida is trying to change it’s reputation for poor customer service.

Considering tourism is No. 1 in that area of the country, it doesn’t seem like poor customer service has caused too much of a problem. But I liked this article because it drives home an important point about customer service: that poor service can impact both large upscale and smaller businesses from succeeding at the level they want to be.

But don’t take just my word for it. Take a look at the article and see what you think:

Seeking better customer service
South Florida is at the crossroads of ‘the customer is always right’ and `buyer beware.’

Ashley Reiser and her husband like the sunny South Florida weather and the international feel so much they have been regular visitors for 15 years.
But during their visit in January, they got a dose of something else the area is known for: bad customer service.