As bricks and mortar increasingly give way to virtual organizations, more and more interactions with customers are taking place via the telephone and the Web. Some organizations apparently believe that while good customer service principles might apply to face-to-face interactions, they don’t apply to phone and internet interactions. Wrong. They do apply. Everyone has gotten lost in the phone directory maze of “press 1 for this, press 2 for that,” and when (or if) we finally get to a live person, that person comes across as indifferent or rushed (probably because they’re held accountable for call volume only). Most of us have also given up on trying to navigate some Websites, let alone trying to get a response via a Web inquiry.

It seems natural customer loyalty would follow good service. If you get what you want and you are treated right, why would you not return to a business? But sometimes it’s useful to have more than an intuitive argument. So I have done a bit of research and I have found two statistics that tell me there is a clear link connecting customer service and customer loyalty.

They also suggest some substantial benefits from improving customer service.

I’ve recently put together a white paper titled, “The Top Five Customer Service Mistakes Companies Make, and How Your Organization Can Avoid Them.” The mistakes addressed in the white paper come from working with and observing hundreds of organizations, large and small, and noting the issues that seem to come up again and again.

My purpose in writing the paper, however, was not to simply point out the mistakes. For each of the five issues addressed, I’ve offered approaches for avoiding the mistake or for making course corrections if things have gotten off track.

Our Amazing customer service resource for this week is a post at the Toilet Paper Entrepreneur called: “60 Customer Service Tips for Entrepreneurs”. It was written by TPE’s Mike Michalowicz but actually consists of tips from dozens of bright people.

Here are a few of my favorites:

4. Be You, Not a Script – Get off the script—LISTEN and respond to what’s really going on.
-Shel Horowitz

Here’s a web resource that has useful customer service information, and a whole lot more. Actually it has over 6,000 articles and other resources for small businesses.

It’s called WBSOnline.com and it’s a free service of Winmark Business Solutions. Winmark is a Minnesota company that offers franchise, leasing and other services to their small business clients. They’ve been doing it for many years and they’ve developed a solid reputation.

About 15 years ago a bright guy from Minnesota started building a website to help people manage their organizations better. Carter McNamara, of Authenticity Consulting, LLC, had the idea long before most of us even knew what the Internet was. Even better, he stuck with it and built a popular and useful resource that is completely free.

It’s called: ManagementHelp.org

This is the first in a regular series of Top 10 lists. Every month I’ll present my top 10 list of resources that can help you improve customer service and increase customer loyalty.

To keep the lists readable I won’t go into a lot of detail on each item. But each resource listed will have a link to more information.

This week’s Amazing Customer Service Resource is as useful as it is fun.  It’s the brainchild of Guy Kawsaki and it keeps getting better:

Alltop – Customer Service

Alltop’s reason for being is best explained by this quote:

“It’s not information overload. It’s filter failure.” – Clay Shirky

We all have a variety of customer service experiences. Some are amazing. Some are lousy. Many are somewhere in between. And we all have opinions about customer service.

So now is the time to share yours. Tell us what you think about the state of customer service. This short survey helps us capture your opinions. Then, later this year, we will put them together in a fancy report that you can have for free. (And you can pat yourself on the back, knowing you made the world a little better for customers everywhere!)

Sometimes things happen just as we want them to. But often we get better results if we plan the changes we want. It doesn’t mean we’ll get exactly what we plan for. But we’re more likely to get what works than if we leave it to chance. So my message today is simply that we should all plan our customer service improvement for next year.

Here are some ideas that might help:

There are many ways any business can (and should) improve customer service. Here are a couple that stand out and can be done without spending a ton of money.

1. Make service a priority

This means your reason for being in business is to help your customers. So everything you do needs to be held up against this standard. Your actions decisions, policies and procedures need to show this. This creates a culture of service in your company. (Your customers know if you DON’T operate this way!)

Last weekend I spoke at the Ensemble Travel Group 2009 International Conference. It was held at the Fairmont Banff Springs hotel in Banff, Alberta. This week I will be sharing some of my experiences there and using them as examples of how we can all increase customer loyalty by improving customer service.

For now, I’ll start with a short video. This was an interview we did before I spoke. The Ensemble Team made wonderful use of technology to capture and deliver learning throughout the conference.