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Customers demand Internet privacy...
... and you'd better sit up and take notice! Customers concern over Internet privacy issues is on the rise, and for good reasons.
Because of SPAM and phishing e-mails, identity theft and viruses, it's completely understandable that customers...
Get PR Off the Bench
Please feel free to publish this article and resource box in your ezine, newsletter, offline publication or website. A copy would be appreciated at bobkelly@TNI.net. Word count is 895 including guidelines and resource box. Robert A. Kelly ©...
How to Retain Your Customers the Dish Network Way
Customer retention is vital to a business. If you cannot retain your customers you will be continually losing current customers and always on the search for new ones. This can be very expensive. Retaining current customers means continual sales...
Take Care of Yourself Before You Take Care of Your Customers
One of the most important questions people ask when they are focused on improving their quantity and quality of business is: “What is my competitive advantage? What makes me unique, memorable, special… what truly sets me apart from the rest?" ...
What's The Customer Service Buzz About Your Business?
Small Business Q&A with Tim Knox If you're a regular reader of this column you know that my number one pet peeve is bad customer service. Nothing chaps my backside more than paying hard-earned money for a product or service only to have the...
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Where have all the delighted customers gone?
WHERE ARE THE DELIGHTED CUSTOMERS?
QUESTION
If every company wants to delight its customers, then how come we don't spend most of our ‘customer days’ delighted?
THE EMPEROR'S NEW CLOTHES?
The so-called new economy and most new business have been built around a specific promise. This promise is that the 'customer is in charge’. The reality is that customer service has reached the pits. Call centres in the depths of the countryside leave us hanging on while we listen to more piped music.
As customers we feel betrayed. It seems remarkable that an entire business philosophy, a mantra chanted across the modern world is so obviously without substance. Many banks, universities, shops, restaurants, builders' merchants, and software companies patently fail to deliver. The customer is not king. The customer is left waiting to be heard (again!).
To reflect on what has happened, one of the promises of the new economy evangelists was that the customer would finally be in charge. We weren't supposed to need to call the customer care department because everything would be right first time!
The reality is somewhat different. How often does the call centre tell you 'We are experiencing higher than usual call volumes' or 'all our customer service
operatives are currently busy' or ‘you are in a queue’? This first statement is almost always followed by the second (incongruous) comment, 'We value you your call'.
Basically, the new economy was meant to make service better, quicker and more effective for customers. At the same time it was meant to make it easier and cheaper for the companies. So much for the theory.
Companies are starting to wake up to the fact that the customer is actually very angry with them. Customer service ratings are a nonsense - the average score is always 'above average'.
Most customers do not feel 'in charge'. So, see what happens if you do put them in charge…
About the author:
Robert Craven - author of business best-sellers ‘Kick-Start Your Business’ and ‘Customer Is King’ (foreword by Sir Richard Branson)... ‘one of the UK’s leading marketing specialists’... the ‘entrepreneurship guru’. He runs The Directors’ Centre (http://www.thedc.co.uk), helping growing businesses to grow.
Robert Craven
rc@thedc.co.uk
http://www.thedc.co.uk
http://www.kick-starters.com
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