Author: Tom

As the demands of beating customer’s expectations are getting greater your business will need to adapt or risk dying. These are the trends you will need to follow:

1. Global competition will drive up service standards. Compete or get beat.
2. Maintain service standards in the face of “the need for
   speed”
3. Learn to use the increased transparency brought by social media to
   your advantage
4. Use new sources and types of data to rethink the way you track and
   personalise your service
5. Good employees WILL remain fundamental to good service but with technology as an enabler
6. More firms will outsource aspects of customer service to new kinds of specialists
7. The rise of the mass affluent and other customer segments will force companies to find new product or service niches
8. Customer expectations, including the purpose of the store, are evolving with new technology

Want to know more then go here

A great opportunity here for all you customer service revolutionaries.

An article that appeared in the Harvard Business Review (6/07) titled “Companies and the Customers Who Hate Them,” talked about how companies need to create less company-centric and more customer-centric policies. If customer satisfaction creates loyalty, and loyalty produces profit, then why do so many companies infuriate their customers with contracts, hidden fees, fine print, and unnecessary penalties? The article’s authors suggest it is because companies have found that confused and ill-informed customers can be the most profitable.

Financial services, insurance products and phone companies are classic examples of where this ethos is alive and kicking.

In our own industry (residential letting and property management) ‘find’ print is rife – the industry thrives on it – each piece of small print is seen as another opportunity to fleece their clients.

Get rid of small print, hidden fees, restrictions,  contracts that are difficult to terminate and watch your customer’s satisfaction and retention rocket!

If not why not? Here at Jungle Property we have started recording the colour of our customers eyes! Why would a business want to do that you may ask. This article by John DiJulius reminded me why..

FAB FIVE – I hate platitudes. Don’t tell your employees to be present or to make or exceed expectations. Tell them how, make it black & white, and make it measurable. One of my new favorite systems for making a customer connection are the “5 E’s.”

1. Eye Contact
2. Ear-to-Ear
3. Enthusiastic Greeting
4. Engage
5. Educate

Why? – I love these for five reasons:

1. They are so simple to do
2. They can be effective with every customer
3. The first four take zero time to execute
4. They demonstrate genuine hospitality
5. No one else is doing them

Applies to B2B – Before I lose my professional service providers or internal customer service/support/call centers thinking this is only for retail-to-consumer models, it absolutely applies to you! It’s 100% if you are meeting customers face-to-face, and if (or when) your touch point is over the phone.  Numbers 2-5 should be non-negotiable every time.

Eye Contact – This eliminates the head down, uncaring, robotic feeling when the front-line just asks, “next?”  A great training method for this is to audit the employees by periodically asking them, “What was the color of the customer’s eyes?”

Ear-to-Ear – Smile.  A smile is part of the uniform, and a smile has teeth. Demonstrate a positive attitude and tell the customers that you are happy to serve them.

Enthusiastic Greeting – Your greeting must demonstrate genuine warmth and not just a trained greeting. It should be one that shows enthusiasm in the voice coupled with a smile and eye contact.  You are now giving genuine hospitality as if the customer was an old friend visiting at your home.

Engage – THIS IS THE ONE, the secret ingredient that most companies do a poor job of mandating, training, showing its importance, and hence they provide little direction to employees on how to execute. This doesn’t have to be a ten-minute conversation.  Every single customer can be engaged within the time it typically takes to serve them, be it 90 seconds in the fast food environment or a 45 minute meeting. This action demonstrates that they are not a herd of cattle, or one of a hundred customers.  It eliminates the “too task focused on the transaction” versus having an “interaction” with someone.  In the incidences where you know the customer — make that known.  Utilize any customer intelligence you can, from info in a database to recognizing their name badge, or a picture of their twins on the desk, a hat, college shirt, tie, glasses, or anything else you can point out.

Educate – This is the one that may slightly affect time of service in industries that are built around rapid pace (fast food) and may have to have an above & beyond action when it is warranted, i.e. a new customer unfamiliar with a menu. For the rest of us it should have zero impact on productivity and be demonstrated every single time. Think of companies like Nordstrom and Apple stores. Their employees are brilliant about their products and application.

To find out more about the customer service revolution visit http://thedijuliusgroup.com/