Category: Customer Service

Article Contributed by Torri Myler

Word of mouth has always been one of the strongest forms of advertising for any business. With the proliferation of online review sites, it is easier than ever for people to go online and rate their experience with your business… good or bad.

Most people admit they’ve been influenced by reviews at one time or another when making a purchase. This underscores the need for every business to take their negative online reviews seriously.

Positive reviews are more common than negative ones but the negative ones can have a disproportionate impact on your business. Here are a few ways that you can handle those occasional bad reviews and possibly even turn them around to your advantage.

Don’t react right away

Especially after a particularly scathing or unfair review, you are probably going to feel like hitting back hard right away. Don’t. Take your time and give yourself a moment to calm down. Responding in the heat of the moment could cause you to say something that could reflect even more poorly on your business. Prospective customers won’t be keen to do business with someone they think is a hothead and prone to attack.

Evaluate whether it deserves a response

There are negative reviews that don’t rise to the level of deserving a response.  For example, reviewers who use offensive language, who seem irrational or who are prone to complain can be safely ignored. If you come across a bad review that expresses genuine concerns, they definitely deserve a response.

Look into their concerns

If a reviewer cites a particular incident, you should do a little research before responding. You can always contact the reviewer privately and ask them for further details, if necessary. Be sure to make it clear that you are trying to resolve their issues positively and want to prevent any further instances.

Petition the site to remove inappropriate reviews

Occasionally, businesses will find that their competitors have gone online and left false negative reviews. If you can prove that it is a false review, most sites are happy to remove the feedback. They may even ban the false reviewer.

If you find a review that contains a personal attack or profanity, this could also be grounds to have the review removed.

Try to see their side of it

Before you respond, it can be helpful to take a moment and try to understand your customer’s point of view. That will help you respond from a place of compassion rather than striking a defensive position.

How to respond

When responding, you can follow this general format that has proven successful for other businesses:

Introduce yourself to the reviewer.

• Thank them for giving you their business.
• Express appreciation that they took the time to provide feedback.
• Apologize sincerely that they were unsatisfied with their experience.
• Sum up your understanding of the situation. (You can do this without automatically admitting fault.)
• Offer your solution to resolve the problem.

It’s important to always keep your communication — whether you respond publicly or privately — as polite and professional as possible. A harshly worded response to a negative review will always backfire.  Be as constructive as possible and demonstrate that you take their concerns seriously.

Learn from it and move on

After you’ve dealt with the review to the best of your ability, you need to take what lesson you can from the experience and then let it go. Some reviewers will remove or update their poor reviews after having a positive experience, but others might not. Continuing to obsess over it won’t bring you any positive results, however.

The nice thing is, a good response to a bad review can help improve your businesses standing in the eyes of other potential customers.

Author’s bio: Torri Myler is a team member at http://www.bankopening.co.uk/ – a UK bank branches’ opening and closing times directory. She combines her expertise in community management with her passion for writing.

Article Contributed by Maggie Dodson

Many retailers make the mistake of focusing on transactions over interactions. They get so caught up on getting customers to walk in the door one more time and make another purchase that they don’t think about how to optimize their rewards program. This results in a number of missed opportunities as shown below.

An effective loyalty program locates your best customers so you can cater to their specific needs.

Typically a small portion of your customer base is responsible for the majority of your revenue stream. If these customers aren’t happy, they aren’t going to stick around for long, which can make or break your business. It may seem like a waste of time to focus on such a small segment of your customer base.

In reality, you’re wasting your time if you’re trying to keep everyone happy. Loyalty programs should allow your store to grow, not keep you teetering on the brink of bankruptcy. Most companies don’t think anything of offering a five percent loyalty discount. It seems innocent enough. However, on a $100 sales transaction that only nets $10 profit, this discount slashes the profit in half. This type of reward results in you paying customers to shop with you, cutting into your margins significantly. You want to provide loyalty discounts and rewards to those who will bring the additional profits to make up for what you’re discounting.

An effective loyalty program allows you to hyper-personalize loyalty offers.

Many retailers send the same discount to all of their customers and don’t think twice. No one wants spam. When customers are unhappy with a brand, 70 percent will unfollow them on social media, 60 percent will delete an app, and 70 percent will close an account or stop shopping with a brand completely.

Don’t get hung up on collecting a vast amount of data. Use an app, such as Collect, to measure at least 50 percent of your transactions to get solid insight about your customers. Once you have collected this basic data about the trends of your core customer base, you can hyper-personalize their loyalty offers.

An effective loyalty program gives your customers what they really want.

While everyone loves a good deal, most customers are looking for more than ways to save money with their favorite brands. Think about what will be really meaningful for the top customers at your store.

After you have established a customized loyalty program that offers non-monetary incentives to your customers, you can build your program with product clusters.

An effective loyalty program helps you locate your 2^nd best customers and turn them into the best customers.

You’ve identified your best customer, which is critical for retention rates. Now you can focus on your second best customer tier so that you can grow it to increase your top tier. Determine what your best customer is doing that your second best customer isn’t. You need to reach out to customers who aren’t taking advantage of your profitable offerings to grow their engagement with your store.

Starbucks does this amazingly well. They track the full purchase cycle of all their customers, such as what they’ve bought, when they’ll buy again and then target people based on this information.

Creating and maintaining a loyalty program is an ongoing process. As the business evolves, the needs and preferences of your customers may change, which can alter the type of reward program that is most beneficial for them. Reevaluate your program on a regular basis, and make changes as needed.

As you can see, your loyalty program should not be all about the rewards. It’s about really understanding your top customers and providing them with reasons to stay loyal to your store or restaurant.

About the Author:

Maggie Dodson helps small, medium and large retailers provide the experiences that they’re customers are looking for. Inside her LinkedIn community, she shares even more customer experience strategies that retailers should be implementing at the point-of-sale to gain loyalty, improve retention and increase the lifetime value of their customers. Join the LinkedIn community here: http://tinyurl.com/POSexperiencestrategies

Article Contributed by Dr. Joey Faucette

The relationships you have with your customers are the most important assets you possess. Easy to understand and take care of, right?

But do you?

As I travel, I encounter a great deal of customer service and disservice. I discovered 3 Strategies to Give Positive Customer Service from some positive and negative experiences.

Listen

As my assistant made reservations for my stay, the Marriott property had obviously listened to previous patrons and anticipated my needs. They asked,

–“May we pick him up at the airport?”

–“Will he want a ride to his meeting?”

–“May we return him to the airport?”

It was if they anticipated my every need. “We care” was the message.

My experience with the airline was totally different. Four out of five flights changed schedule. There were only two notifications—a delay due to weather, and a flight attendant was late. The reasons for the rest are unknown to me. I heard, “We don’t care. Get over it.”

There are patterns to your customers’ preferences. Listen carefully, and you discover them, anticipate them, and can ask based on the common ones. What you do with the answers makes the difference in whether or not they return and boost profitability.

Listen. Anticipate. Ask.

Mutual Benefit

I discovered the cancelled flight at the ticket counter. There were no more flights that night. When I asked, “What can you do to help me?” the response was, “Let me get my supervisor.”

Me:  “What can you do to help me?”

Him: “Nothing. It’s weather-related.”

Me:  “No vouchers?”

Him: “Nothing. It’s weather-related.”

Me:  “Is there anything you can do to help me?”

Him: “Nothing. It’s weather-related.”

Me:  “Do you realize I fly a lot, but will not fly this airline ever again?”

Him: “It’s weather-related.”

Contrast that with the Marriott, whom I called from the airport. She recognized my name immediately, and asked if I made it to the airport fine. When I told her my situation, she moved into action.

Her: “I have a room for you. Let me take care of this, okay? I’ll turn Ronda around on the van to come back to get you.”

Me: “Thanks so much.”

She then discounted my room rate below the previous night’s stay without my asking and said she was sorry for my inconvenience.

When you work with your customers, helping them benefit even when you obviously will, you narrow the backdoor and widen the front door.

Work for mutual benefit with your customers and grow.

Golden Rule

Returning to the Marriott, I was greeted by name, received empathy for my situation, and she found a similar room to my previous one. A complimentary glass of wine helped, also.

The airline booked my flight for the next day at their convenience which meant I set a 5:00 a.m. alarm. My assigned seat was on the last row—the loudest—and next to the lavatory. Had they simply asked about my flight or seating preferences, the engines would have seemed quieter and the lavatory smelled better.

The Golden Rule works. Work the Golden Rule.

I instructed my assistant to avoid booking this airline ever again.

I asked her to choose Marriott properties every time.

Which business model do you follow—the airline’s or Marriott’s?

Be positive with your customer service and grow your business’ profitability.

About the Author
Dr. Joey Faucette is the #1 best-selling author of Work Positive in a Negative World (Entrepreneur Press), Positive Success Coach, & speaker who helps business professionals increase sales with greater productivity so they get out of the office earlier to do what they love with those they love. Discover the free webinar about the coveted 7 Weeks to Work Positive Coaching Program at www.GetPositive.Today.

Article Contributed by Dr. Joey Faucette

A friend of mine told me about his customer experience with an oil change. He arrived before the shop officially opened, simultaneously with another customer. She tried the door, found it open, and walked in. He followed.

The two chatted, waiting for the attendant. When he arrived from the back, he gruffly said, “What are you doing in here? We don’t open until 7:30,” turned and went back.

My friend assured me he will find a new oil change shop.

If you’re the owner or manager, how do you find out about such experiences?

When business drops?

Maybe, but how will you determine what changes to make so you profit?

Implement these 3 Strategies to Profit from Negative Customer Experiences:

Dig into the Customer Experience

How do you know what your customers experience? Do you ask?

You can have a “Comments Welcomed” box in the waiting room. Or, randomly pull contacts from the customer database and survey them by email with a “thank you” gift card to a favorite local restaurant sent following completion. Or, have them complete a quick survey—spoken or written—immediately before they leave.

It costs you nothing to dig into your customers’ experience by asking. It costs you everything to ignore them.

Discover Positives and Negatives

Most owners and managers are ecstatic to have customers waiting at the door before opening. So that’s a positive, right?

To attendants, not so much.

The positive is eager customers.

The negative is a poor customer experience.

As you dig into the customer experience by asking, you discover positives and negatives.

Listen to the results of your digging and asking. Note carefully the positives and negatives. You profit from both.

Deliver More Positives

Your inclination is to tell the attendant, “Don’t ever do that again!”

How has such negative reinforcement worked in the past? Positive, profitable change?

Probably not.

Instead, deliver more positives.

First, listen to your discoveries and ask, “What are the strengths of the current customer experience?” Deliver more of them. Put the attendants who get it right in charge of training.

Second, transform the negatives and ask, “How can we do this better?” This attendant lacks an incentive program that bonuses him for productivity or else he would have treated the two early birds better. While it’s easy to blame the attendant, what kind of system is in place to encourage best practices? Your imagination is the only limit.

You create higher profit margins by retaining and enhancing your current customer relationships. You lose money by inviting them to go somewhere else.

Implement these 3 Strategies to Profit from Negative Customer Experiences today and keep your customers coming back. 

About the Author

Dr. Joey Faucette is the #1 best-selling author of Work Positive in a Negative World (Entrepreneur Press), Positive Success Coach, & speaker who helps business professionals increase sales with greater productivity so they get out of the office earlier to do what they love with those they love. Discover more at www.GetPositive.Today.