Customer Service

Four Ways to Improve Customer Service

Dec 102010

Providing friendly, helpful customer service is not only crucial to selling products but also to building a loyal customer base. On the other hand, when you let service slip, your business can take a tumble just as quickly. Here are two recent examples of bad service that I’ve encountered.

During an excursion to New York City’s Lower East Side, a friend and I stopped into a lingerie shop. Inside, we found shelves and shelves packed with boxes, but not a piece of clothing was in sight. The man at the counter glanced up at us and went back to reading his newspaper. When we asked Continue reading »

7 Simple Ways to Serve, Solve and Delight Customers

Customer Service No Responses »

Nov 092010

I read an interesting tweet from my friend and entrepreneurship savant, Bryan Franklin that said:

“I noticed that the speakers with $1-$3M businesses were fascinated with marketing, and the speaker with $100M biz was fascinated with customers.”

And, shortly after that, I scanned down my tweet-stream to notice a gazillion or so links to articles and posts that reveals X ways to get more clients, Y ways to market bigger and better and Z ways to get more subscribers.

Bryan’s right, you’ll solve most of your business problems by spending more energy figuring out how best understand your customers’ lives, psyches and challenges, then working to solve your customers problems and deliver delight to their doorsteps.

Not a lot of people create lists that focus on how to better serve, solve and delight your customers. So, Continue reading »

Customer Service Is Everyone’s Job

Customer Service No Responses »

Nov 012010

Here’s something your customers won’t ever tell you but that you had better understand: Your employees probably treat your customers about the same way you treat your employees. Let that soak that in for a minute, and think about the ways your everyday behavior might be affecting your organization’s ability to generate positive buzz.

Organizations that provide the best customer service consider service traits when they hire and treat their employees like prime target customers. Continue reading »

Attitude Adjustment: A Customer Service Reality Check

Customer Service No Responses »

Oct 122010

I bet you’ve said this before: “If it weren’t for the customer, this would be a great business.” I have. We say it as a little joke, an eye-rolling one-liner when we have “one of those” customer moments.

Jokes are funny only because they’re partly true. And where there’s the smoke of truth, there’s often fire. This sort of attitude may be a signal that your business is missing opportunities to better serve your customers. Here’s a look at the folly behind this flawed mind-set and how to stop it in its tracks.

Companies do a lot of things for their own convenience — not the customer’s. Continue reading »

How to Deliver Great Customer Service

Customer Service No Responses »

Sep 082010

A widely quoted statistic gets to the heart of the value proposition behind customer service: The cost of acquiring a new customer is five times that of retaining an existing one. For businesses that succeed by forming a bond with the customer, the disparity is surely even greater.

Good customer service is essentially a variation on the golden rule: You want to meet the Continue reading »