Categories
Customer Service

10 Ways to Differentiate Your Customer Service & Make Your Clients Actually Feel Valued

Article Contributed by Sara LaForest and Tony Kubica

Every business owner and organization knows if they want to attract and retain more loyal customers, they need to provide high-quality customer service. That’s why organizations today focus heavily on communicating how valuable their customers are to the organization. Now, the question is… How much do they truly value their customers?

Most of you probably had the experience of being a “valued” customer, yet you didn’t feel valued at all! For example, you call a company for either customer service or to order one of their products and you enter into the electronic triage system only to be put on hold. You’re told: please stay on the line, your call is important to us.  Sometimes we dutifully follow the electronic request, and we wait, and even wait longer.  Other times we hang up in pure frustration.

Or, have you been asked to complete a customer satisfaction questionnaire?  Again, you are told that your comments are “very important to us”.  Really?

How maddening it is when you have taken the time to complete such surveys after receiving poor service, spelling out in detail what the issue was and why you were dissatisfied, only to receive no acknowledgement of your issue or concern?

Perception, as we have heard endless times, is reality.  The reality here is that you won’t go back or use them in the future. And likely, you will tell your friends!

We believe that providing excellent customer service should be an obsession.

Here Are Our Growth without Sabotage™ Tips That Will Help Your Organization Differentiate Your Customer Service

¨      Have a real, live person answer all of your calls. If you cannot have someone answer all your calls, subscribe to a voice message service and include a message that you will return all calls within one business day – and do it If  it is late in the day, it can acceptable to wait till the next business morning.  Remember, the message and perception in timing/promptness is, “you count”– you are important and a priority to me.

¨      Return emails within one business day (two days maximum)

¨      Learn to be comfortable introducing yourself by your full name. When meeting in person, look at people directly in the eye, especially when you first meet them and insure you know how to give and reciprocate a firm handshake.

¨      Insure you clearly understand the customer or prospects need and priorities.  Do this by listening sincerely and asking clarifying questions. Listen FIRST and actively listen more than you talk. Ask questions to clarify your understanding of your prospect’s motivation to buy – but do so respectfully and carefully.

¨      Keep agreements you make to the prospect or the customer. When you say you will do something, do it when you said you would do it. Emergencies should be the only exception.

¨      Eliminate negative surprises for the customer. If there is a problem, acknowledge it quickly, apologize if appropriate and do your best to fix the problem to the customer’s satisfaction.

¨      Always have your clients’ and prospects’ best interest in mind. Think of ways you can help them improve their needs to be in the forefront.

¨      Think of the long term sale. That means go slow, don’t push now to sell or attempt to up-sell. Think of the longer-term relationship and resulting opportunities forthcoming.

¨      Warming- Flirting and fawning are forms of overselling (as well as demeaning) yourself. Realize how unprofessional and damaging these behaviors are with your customers and prospects.

¨      Warning – Don’t expect the customer to understand that you are busy or short staffed. They won’t and they shouldn’t have to.

You may be thinking that this is obvious.  Yes, indeed, it is not rocket science. While it may be obvious, the truth is that it is also frequently not practiced.   And because it is not done well or consistently, it represents a key differentiator.

You need to capture the attention of your future customers and keep your current customers. Without consistent excellent customer care, customer loyalty is improbable, especially in this economy where buyers are more cautious.  Now more than ever in business, we need to find ways to differentiate ourselves. We find that customer service is a simple yet powerful differentiating strategy.

About the Authors:

Sara LaForest and Tony Kubica are management consultants with more than 50+ years of combined experience in helping organizations improve their business performance. They say, failing to improve customer service by showing your clients that you value them is just one way to sabotage your business growth. Get their complete “Self-Sabotage in Business White Paper” now at: http://www.kubicalaforestconsulting.com/resources.php

Categories
Entrepreneurs

Help! I think I Picked the Wrong Coach: 3 Ways Entrepreneurs Can Tell If It’s a Bad Fit

Article Contributed by Lynda-Ross Vega

The numbers are daunting: one third of all small businesses will fail within the first two years and only one half will make it to year four. When it comes to internet businesses, though, those statistics look positively rosy. According to Sean Donahoe of the ADD Marketing Group, 95% of all internet marketers fail to make any money at all online. According to Donahoe:

“The problem is that people want immediate results and as soon as they hit any form of roadblock they change course or give up. They do not have the helping hand that guides them to success and profits.”

There are so many ‘moving parts’ involved in successful internet marketing (squeeze pages, auto-responders, shopping carts etc.) and the rules change so quickly (video v. audio, MySpace v. Facebook) that it is difficult to master without guidance. As a consequence, there is no lack of helping hands available to fledgling internet entrepreneurs—in fact, the focus of many internet entrepreneurs is to help others build successful internet based businesses.

But taking advice from a successful internet marketer and emulating their style without an understanding of your own skills and talents can lead to frustration, burn out, and failure.

If you are currently working with a successful coach or mentor, but are not experiencing the kind of success you envisioned, the problem might not be on your end—you may simply have picked the wrong person.

Here are three major ways to tell if you have the picked the wrong coach/mentor:

1.    You enjoy what they say, are enthusiastic after a coaching call or mastermind session, but trying to implement what you have learned leaves you feeling tired and worn out.

2.    You try harder but are left with unanswered questions and a vague sense that you are almost getting it, but not quite.

3.    When you ask for clarification or help the response you get can be boiled down to “keep on trying and you will eventually ‘get it’.”

Successful entrepreneurs build their business around a core of the natural skills they have, and when they mentor others, those are the skills they’ll emphasize. Their advice and coaching will be about helping you to do what they have done.

It sounds good, of course—but the problem is that their natural skills are often not the same as yours. As a consequence, what is easy for them is not easy for you.

We all have a large but finite set of skills and abilities that are natural to us. These skills and abilities are always easier to grow and develop than those that don’t come naturally to us—what are known as acquired skills.

We are naturally attracted to people who fill gaps for us—i.e., those who accomplish easily what we’d like to be able to do. The problem is that this focus on “what is missing” leads you to focus on acquired skills. Working hard to develop these missing pieces takes time and energy away from developing the areas where you naturally excel.

Find a coach/mentor who recognizes your natural potential and can open the doors to skills and abilities that come naturally to you, but are underutilized in your business. As for the ‘gaps,’ it makes more sense to hire someone who does what you don’t than it does to try to emulate a mentor who’s too different from yourself. Success is built on doing more of what you love, not less.

This approach requires that you have a working knowledge of your own natural skills and abilities, but the time spent discovering this knowledge is well worth the results and the frustration avoided.

About the Author:

Lynda-Ross Vega: A partner at Vega Behavioral Consulting, Ltd., Lynda-Ross specializes in helping entrepreneurs and coaches build dynamite teams and systems that WORK. She is co-creator of Perceptual Style Theory, a revolutionary psychological assessment system that teaches people how to unleash their deepest potentials for success. For free information on how to succeed as an entrepreneur or coach, create a thriving business and build your bottom line doing more of what you love, visit www.ACIforCoaches.com and www.ACIforEntrepreneurs.com.

Categories
Newsletter

BIZNESS! Newsletter Issue 111

BIZNESS! Newsletter

divider.gif
Cover Story
Top 5 Hiring Tips For Startups

Building a great team is crucial to ensuring the success and sustainability of any startup venture. But, there are potential pitfalls to consider, and there’s little room for error if an employee constitutes 25% or even more of your workforce at an early stage company…

Continued in BIZNESS! Newsletter Issue 111 >>>


Top Stories From CoolBusinessIdeas.com

– Waterless Car Wash
– Kiss My Valentine for Romeos
– Manage Your Sports Team Website with TeamSnap
– Can You Profit From Listening to Dow?
– Micro Cinema
– Geometric Tents
– Floating Hotel

Continue reading these top stories in the BIZNESS! Newsletter >>>



Top Stories From GetEntrepreneurial.com

– It’s About “Them,” Not “Me”: Highlighting Your Juicy Benefits
– Make Your Sales Meetings STICK
– Top 10 Sales Coaching Tips To Increase Sales Productivity
– 5 Things I Did Right to Start Seeing Consistent Business Growth, Income and Success!
– Top Advantage of Starting A Distribution Business
– How to Attract More Clients By Dumping the Junk
– Business and Creativity: It’s Not Just for Artists!

Continue reading these top stories in the BIZNESS! Newsletter >>>


divider.gif
Subscribe Now

Can’t stand your demanding boss anymore? Start your own business! Before that, be sure to subscribe to our free informative newsletter. BIZNESS! is jointly published by CoolBusinessIdeas.com and GetEntrepreneurial.com What you get in BIZNESS! – the latest new business ideas, small business advice, business tips and info and entrepreneur resources. Everything you need for your brand new business!

Free 28-pages PDF report (worth $38) – “Cool Business Ideas in 2009” – included with your subscription. Learn more here.

Subscribe

Categories
People & Relationships

Mirror Mirror on the Wall: The Secret & Most Effective Relationship Tool

Article Contributed by Dr. Patty Ann Tublin

I’m sure you know the beloved fairytale “Snow White and the 7 Dwarfs.” Remember the part of the fairytale when the witch looks in the mirror and says, “Mirror, mirror on the wall, who’s the fairest of them all?” And the response the witch hears back is: “Snow White.”

This unexpected response from the mirror to the witch’s question takes the witch by utter surprise and leaves her seething in anger. The mirror revealed the truth that everybody else knew, but that the witch was certainly not expecting. Mirrors reveal truths that we are not always willing to see when we look into them. And the mirror is – beyond a shadow of a doubt – the secret, most effective relationship tool you must have that holds the key for rekindling love and romance in your relationship.

I’m not talking about looks here, but the true you that is reflected in the looking glass. An honest look in the mirror is virtually guaranteed to rekindle love and romance in your relationship because all change starts with changing ourselves. Look in the mirror frequently and with honesty because we cannot change anyone but the person being reflected back at us in the mirror we hold in our hand.

Why is this true? We are often reluctant, and maybe even a little afraid to take a long hard look in the mirror to see what baggage we are bringing to the table that is negatively impacting our relationship. We find it very difficult to take a look in the mirror because, truth be told, it is so much easier to just point our finger and place all the problems in our relationship on our partner.

Take a moment and think about your own romantic relationship. I would bet you dollars to donuts you could provide me with a laundry list of complaints and character flaws about your partner in a New York minute. Right? However, we are often hard pressed to provide a list of our own personal character flaws and limitations. Yet, our character traits and issues might very well be the ones responsible for detouring our relationship off the course of true love and intimacy that we so desperately crave.

So often we are unforgiving, intolerant and most critical when we see in our partner our own imperfections. But we refuse to acknowledge these flaws and we avoid looking in the mirror at all costs so we don’t have to face them! To keep love and romance alive in our relationship, it is imperative that we pull out our mirror and reflect upon what we are really seeing – not what we want to see but what is truly there. The chasm between these two thoughts can be as wide as the Grand Canyon.

Next time you are about to blame and/or criticize your partner – stop and take a long hard look in the mirror. Maybe you will see that you too are also contributing and responsible for the difficulties you are “facing” in your relationship. Whether you face it or not, the truth remains the same. So pick up your mirror and you will begin to change the only person in your relationship that you can truly change – yourself!

About the Author:

During the past 25 years, renowned relationship expert Dr. Patty Ann Tublin has helped hundreds of people rekindle romance and reignite passion in their relationships. The solutions in her Relationship Toolbox help couples re-build romance so intimacy inside and outside the bedroom can flourish. Through her successful 25-year marriage and her experience of raising 4 children, Dr. Patty Ann has earned an international reputation for saving relationships. To reignite your flames of passion, visit her site at www.drpattyann.com.

Categories
Planning & Management

Is Your Management Causing Employee Issues and Slow Business Growth?

Article Contributed by Sara LaForest and Tony Kubica

Could your management team be creating unnecessary employee issues that are leading to:

  • Low employee engagement
  • Low employee morale
  • Poor productivity
  • Poor customer service
  • The need for voluminous policy and procedure manuals to ensure that the manager follows the rules, and
  • High turnover

While not so comfortable to ask, and even more challenging to be accountable for, here are 7 key questions to help you determine if your management is causing the above common concerns:

1.    Does every member of your management team know (internalize) the company’s Mission/Purpose and Vision (ideal future state)?

2.    Can every member of your management team describe the company Values, (that is, the key ways in which you go about your work, such as excellence in customer service, innovation, teamwork, respect…)? And, can every member of the management team give some examples of how the company values are demonstrated on a day-to-day basis?

3.    Do you have a succession plan – that is, an approach for and/or development of high potential/successor candidates?

4.    Do new people promoted to or hired for a management position clearly demonstrate the company values?

5.    Do you have an effective way to transition new managers into their positions (or do you just assume the transition will happen)?

6.    And, do you remove poor and ineffective managers quickly?

If you said “NO” to any of the questions above then you likely have employee issues as a result of your management problems.

When Addressing Employee Issues, Ensure You Have Sound Management First

How can you improve your business when you have employee issues and conflicts getting in your way of running an effective, productive and efficient organization? First, change your approach and take a macro view. That is, understand that often, employee issues are symptoms of inconsistent or failing management.

Your strongest assets and your key resources are your employees. (Yes, even stronger than your brand. Brand creates awareness and a promise. But it’s the employees that deliver on that promise.) And, while painful to acknowledge, it is the most talented employees that leave first.

If you want to improve your business, you must start with your managers. These are the people who are the direct link to your front line employees. These managers include:

  • Department managers
  • Assistant managers
  • Shift supervisors
  • Store managers
  • Team leaders

Yet unfortunately, the role and impact of the direct supervisors are often overlooked when senior management or business owners contemplate improvement questions such as:

  • How can we improve morale?
  • What’s a good compensation system?
  • How can we recruit and retain better employees?
  • How do we improve our customer service?

Simply stated, as long as you do not deal with supervisor/manager competency and impact, you cannot effectively deal with any of the questions raised above. It’s like trying to come up with a model to explain how our solar system works using the earth as the center of the system. It just won’t work, no matter how hard you try. Replace the earth with the sun and it works beautifully. Money spent to improve the effects of management is wasted unless it’s spent to address poor management first.

Five Required Steps to Identifying and Addressing the Issue of Poor Management

1)      First, get senior executives to function as an aligned team and to translate this manager’s to promote (by demonstration not lip service) the stated values of the business. Remember, employees watch their leadership team for cues on how to behave and how to manage. They look to managers to see what’s acceptable and what is not!

2)      Carefully select employees for management positions. This means you need to have a succession plan that incorporates a management development plan for high potential candidates.

3)      Support the transition from employee to manager. Not all newly promoted managers will be ready for their new role. In fact, in many organizations, it’s possible that most aren’t yet ready for prime time but are needed there. (A good coach or mentor can be very valuable in these situations.)

4)      Define the standard of performance required of all your managers. Provide needed support to help your managers understand your standards and meet them. If they don’t (or won’t) after suitable support and development, replace them. Understand that “what you permit you promote”. Tolerating poor managers and poor manager behavior is the same as condoning it. And that is the way employees will perceive it.

5)      Then, insure your managers/supervisors are responsible for performance management and instilling employee accountability using these four fundamentals with their employees:

A.    Clarifying expectations of their role individually and within context to the larger organization

B.     Providing adequate training and development for them to do their job (identify and address skills, knowledge and resource gaps)

C.     Provide consistent feedback on their performance, expressly positive/ recognition based, and of course, addressing concerns or deficiencies (in which case you start over at A, though focusing on the concern/issue and what is needed/expected…)

D.    And, be consistent with upholding consequences. Similar to tolerating poor managers, unwilling or persistent underperforming employees will quickly compromise your overall results.

Service excellence, cost-effective performance and innovation, start with engaged employees. And employees leave their organizations most often because of a bad boss and a poor-working relationship. If you believe that your employees are not engaged to the extent you want them to be, don’t start with employee remediation efforts. Start first, with the leaders and the managers. If employees don’t have a good boss and working experience with them, save your money; as nothing else will work, at least for very long. It may be the most difficult place to start, but it will be the most effective for long-term ROI.

About the Authors:

Sara LaForest and Tony Kubica are management consultants with more than 50+ years of combined experience in helping organizations improve their business performance simply by improving the leadership effectiveness of top management. Now, get their “Self-Sabotage in Business White Paper” at: http://www.kubicalaforestconsulting.com/resources.php and uncover the common, subtle ways your management team is harming your overall business performance.