One of my favorite movies is Coach Carter. It’s based on the true story of a high school star basketball player who comes back to coach at his old school. The team was on a losing streak with few prospects for improvement. Coach Carter steps in and makes some radical changes to help the players become successful both on the court and in their personal lives. While the movie focuses heavily on the coach and his unusual methods, it’s also offers lessons for any organization wanting to improve. The story line includes powerful themes of teamwork, leadership, hope, hard work, [...]
Improve Customer Service
Learn how to improve your customer service with these free articles, tool-kits and other training resources.
There are substantial benefits for companies that improve their customer service. The good news is you don’t need to spend a lot of money to start making improvements in your customer service. You can make customer service improvements starting today. Here are some specific suggestions to get you started. 1. Improve People Skills To deliver Amazing Service, people skills count. So a fast and high return way to improve customer service is to find ways to improve your team’s people skills. This might include bringing in a speaker or trainer. It could mean focusing on people skills topics at staff [...]
Jeff Gitomer is best known to many as a sales guru but his message is equally important to anyone who wants to keep their customers coming back. In this short video he offers some platinum advice on attracting the right customers by offering them more value than anyone else. This is important because the more value your customer perceives in your offering, the more likely it is they will stay with you for the long term. I especially like this video because Jeff shares his 11 (okay he calls them 10.5) ways to show value to your customer. By breaking [...]
There’s an old funny accurate cartoon that shows a king sending away a salesman because the king is facing an invading army. His focus needs to be on defeating his enemy, not on spending time talk to a “crazy salesman”, as he puts it. The king’s purpose at that moment is to beat this enemy army. This army is coming at him fast and furious loaded with bows, arrows, spears and swords. It’s a serious situation. But the salesman is selling missile launchers and automatic weapons. If he sees his job as simply responding to what the customer wants, the [...]
Over the past few decades we have seen technology replace more and more people as we buy and use the things that keep us going. From the ubiquitous self-service gas station to self-service check-in at airports, we have more opportunities than ever to deal with machines rather than people. Is this good for customer service? Or maybe a better way to put it is: Does this help customers get what they want better, faster or cheaper? At Smarter Travel, Carl Unger writes about this trend in the travel business. He cites a survey that suggests 70% of airline customers want [...]
The headline of this post comes from a blog post by my friend Brian Carroll. His post describes a conversation he had with a client where they discussed how lead generation often ignores current customers. As a result of the discussion, one CEO decided his company would begin focusing more on current customers. He even referred to their new focus as their “Customers First Plan”. The outcome of their new-found focus on existing customers was revealing. They increased revenue from current customers by 15%. Even better, their referrals jumped over 100%. As they focused more on existing customers, they no [...]
A few years ago AOL became the poster child for a special kind of customer abuse when a customer recorded his phone call to them as he tried to cancel his account. All he wanted to do was leave. All they wanted to do was prevent him from leaving. But they had his credit card information and so they could make him jump through any hoops they wanted to prevent him from becoming a former customer. Happily, for him and the rest of us, the news media saw the value in this as a story and it went viral. AOL [...]
Several times a year I get a CD from a well-known PR consultant. She is a very aggressive and consistent promoter of her business. She has done a good job making herself well-known in her niche. But, when I listen to her CD I often resist her message. Not because of its quality. She has a lot of good ideas and advice. What drives me away is the amount of time it takes to introduce her on each CD program. Her intro seems to go on and on. It talks about every little thing she’s done. By the time I [...]
Every business exists to help people accomplish something. If we fail at that then our business will not be sustainable. But to help our customers really get what they want, we need to know what that is. We do that by having conversations with them. Ask questions and listen to the answers. Get in the habit of talking with your customers at natural points of contact. And do it frequently. Once a year is not enough. When you ask your customers what they want, how you’re doing and how you can improve, they will give you a goldmine of information. [...]
