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Catalog Printing: A Subtle Way Of Seducing Customers
As a business grows so is its need for better and cost-effective advertising materials. One option that business owners may try to consider is catalog printing. Catalogs are not only known for its ability to effectively grab the attention of...
Dialogue: The Four Dialogic Principles For Successful Communication
"But you don't understand!" exclaimed the manager, "this new initiative is vital for our team. If it doesn't work we could all be out of a job!"
"Uh-huh... Really... Explain to me again how this new initiative is so different from previous...
If You Can’t See It, They Won’t Do It
Recently, while developing a customer service program, I asked my client to provide me with detailed descriptions of behaviors he wanted his team members to engage in. He called me back a short time later and told me that his department heads...
Leave Your “Buts” Behind for Great Customer Service
How many times have you heard something similar to this in a customer service situation? Customer: “Why don’t you just do it this way, and it will take care of the situation.” Customer Service Person: “I understand what you are saying, but we can...
Sequential Autoresponders Build Customer Relatonships
A powerful reason for making the switch from using the
unlimited autoresponders that come free with your web
hosting account to paying a monthly fee for an
autoresponder service is the building of customer
relationships through...
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Who Comes First - The Customer or Employee?
The commonly held view that the customer comes first is worth a
close look. Think about the last time you received less than
satisfactory customer service. What caused it? Probably an
employee! Either directly, bad manners and a "don't care"
attitude, or by not addressing your needs - "sorry, I can't
handle that order, you'll have to call another number".
While most of our focus is rightly on customer needs, it may be
useful to first stand back and look at the needs of the
employees servicing them. Most customer complaints can probably
be traced back to the attitude or competence of an employee. It
follows then that if we have the right employees, doing the
right things, we should enhance our customer satisfaction.
Asking employees to focus on the customer when they may be
unhappy with the company is asking for trouble. I recently had a
bank help desk employee agree with me that the Internet banking
system was slow and inadequate. He later went on to tell me a
lot more about the organization and its management, all of it
unflattering!
Why do organizations let disgruntled employees loose on valuable
customers? Probably because they don't know they are
disgruntled, and maybe because no one has thought through the
consequences.
Addressing the key issues important to staff is a good starting
point. Do they feel they belong to a team which is going
somewhere? Do they know exactly what is expected of them and
receive feedback and appropriate rewards based on performance?
Do they have a future and are they growing in the way they want
to?
Once you have the basics in place to improve levels of staff
satisfaction and retention, you
can focus on the customer by
ensuring that customer service is a key result area of the jobs
that deal with them. With a small investment in time, measures
relating to customer satisfaction can be built into the
performance management system.
A useful way of looking at this is to use a systems approach,
define the inputs and the outputs, and then choose the most
useful and practical factors to measure performance against.
While measuring outputs is best, many jobs do not necessarily
control the end result of customer service or sales, so we need
to look at what they can control and measure that.
Typical inputs would be the actions taken by the employee such
as calls made, or specific behaviors such as building rapport
and handling problems. These inputs can be observed and measured
and, depending on the sales environment, you should know whether
these generally lead to more sales.
Typical outputs are more closely linked to the main objective,
which might be sales, repeat business or profit. By recruiting,
rewarding and developing the right people who can achieve
against these types of measures, improved customer satisfaction
should follow.
A free diagnostic tool for assessing how well placed your
business is for attracting and keeping the right people is
available at the website shown below with the author's details.
About the author:
Paul Phillips is a Director of Horizon Management Group; a
specialist human resource management consulting firm. He has
over 30 years experience in HR and, while based in Australia,
has worked in a number of overseas locations. www.horizonmg.com
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