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Showing newest posts with label Customer Service Tips. Show older posts
Showing newest posts with label Customer Service Tips. Show older posts

5 Customer Service Goof-ups




Here goes my five goof ups which if used can definitely result into customer defection.

Do Not Take Care of Your Language - Do not use language which brings out courteous personality of yours. Use lot of words like 'obvious' which shows your are arrogant, unfriendly and rude.

Do not call back your customers - Do not want to take customer's call. No problem. Just tell him 'I will call you back' and keep the phone down. Do this time and again and customer will stop calling you forever. 'I will call you back' is most over-used goli given to customers. You should also try sometime, it will surely work as it is tried and tested.

Make the customer follow up - Do not want to help a customer? Ask him to follow the 'follow-up loop'. Ask him to visit again and again and again and again. He will surely loose his patience someday and that would be the last time he will bother you.

Advertise sales without details - Tell the whole world with a full page advertisement that you are coming out with a huge sale. Just keep your terms and conditions so small that it can be read only by microscopes. Let customer come to you running, fill his shopping trolley and spend 40 minutes in billing. Then hit him with a hammer called terms and conditions. He will dump his shopping trolley on billing station and will never comeback (till he sees next sales advertisement of yours).   

Keep yourself busy on phone - Posted at front-end of some business and do not want to attend any customers. Get busy on phone. Its simple. Pretend it is the most important call of your life and customer will understand and go away. You know customer is an understanding species.

Try these above mentioned steps and I assure that you will an have endless list of customers who are fed up with you. Probably, yours will be the last place that they would like to visit

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Service Do-Not's for Diner Staff




As stated in my earlier post, here goes  second part of practices that should be avoided if you work in a restaurant. As stated in my last post, some of these practices are applicable to most customer service department.

Here are some more tips which can help in delivering customer service a little better....

Know your product. Know your your store. Know your menu. etc. etc. A simple approach which can produce some startling results.

Do not ignore a customer. Even if it is not your department, customer is yours.

Do not blame others for problem. It is always easy to point fingers. Looking for solutions is difficult but very fruitful. If immediate solution is not available, give an appropriate timeline and proactively inform customer about the status.

Help customers in making decision, if it is necessary. Do not try to sell your highest margin product or costliest product or product which provides maximum employee incentive. Provide genuine help. Customers appreciate that.

Do not disappear. Customer asked for some help and you promised to come back with solution. And you never came back. This is bad.

Do not hover long enough. Do not make customers feel they are being watched. Let customers figure out themselves. If they require any help, they will come to you.

Do not show frustration. Customer service job is full of stress. But it would be more fun, if you serve your customers patiently.

I hope you enjoyed it.

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Customer Service Tips



An interesting article which lists 50 things that should be avoided by you, if you are working in a restaurant. Though, this list talks about things not-to-do in restaurant but a lot of points can be applied to all businesses related to service. 
 
Some of the points which I feel relevant to many businesses are:
 
Greet warmly - An eye contact. A hearty smile. A friendly hello. A sincere greeting. All these things help in initiating a relationship which can be cherished for long time to come.
 
Opening lines matter - Do not open your conversation with a lame sentence like "mineral water or tap water?" More the interesting opening lines are, more the customer will be inclined to stay with you. After all you do want him to come again and again because of you. 
 
Interrupting a conversation is a sin - Yes, you have some wonderful ideas and bombarding your customer with those ideas is the only logical thing occurring to you. But hold on. Let your customer speak first. Do not interrupt him. If customer is accompanied by a friend or spouse and they are discussing something, do not interrupt them as well. Be patient, you will have enough time to throw your ideas at them.
 
Take feedback and fix things which are not right - After customers are done with their shopping, dinner or window/floor shopping, do take their feedback. And taking feedback will be the first step only and it would be an incomplete step if you do what needs to be corrected.
 
Be consistent throughout your conversation - Charming at the beginning of conversation. Listless in the middle. Tired at the end of the conversation. Not done. Hardly an impact which you want to leave on customer.

This is only part one and I can't wait to read the second part as well. Will share with you all as soon it is updated.

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Enjoying the journey

At the onset I apologize for this shameless self-promotion.

Last year I started this blog about customer service and customer experience. And this is my 100th blog post.
First fifty posts were tough to write but later on I started blogging actively. Blame it on tough times! 

Some of the posts written on my blog are half-baked and others are well cooked. In case you like my blog, please drop in regularly to read it. If you feel that blog is not good, please forward to all your friends telling them not to write a blog the way I do:-)

Looking forward to stay in touch through my blog as well.

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Simple rules for great service

Some small budget movies are making lot of money in US.

But what's really driving this year's box-office surge? Three movies: Sony's "Paul Blart: Mall Cop," Fox's "Taken" and Universal's "Fast and Furious" have grossed more than $350 million combined, surprising analysts and outperforming even movie-mogul expectations.
Reason: they market it differently.

A closer examination of their success suggests Tinseltown's studios and stars aren't merely reaping the benefits of a nasty recession; they're also creating those benefits by making substantial changes in marketing and distribution -- tweaks that retailers and consumer brands should note too.
According to reports, these movies did four things right - Hit the bricks, Hire hungry talent with something to prove, Break taboos and Sizzle sells in any season.

The above four principle are also required to deliver some exceptional customer service.

Working at ground level :- Spend time with people who are face of your company. Nothing beats listening to customers. Spend time where your customers are. JetBlue CEO always spend time interacting with his passengers in the flights. He takes feedback about services. He is connected to ground and it is no surprise that JetBlue flying experience is always a pleasure.

Hire hungry people :- This is the most important point. Employees who are face of the company should be hired and trained with great care. They are the company for customers and customers will build image of company through them. Hire people who have passion and hunger for customer service.

Break taboos :- For years retailers have put up return policies which did not offer any benefit to customer. Policies were pro companies and did not offer any chance to customer for any negotiation. Then came Zappos and their 365 days return policies. They challenged the status quo and they have now 75% customers as return customers.

Sizzle always sell :- Adding your signatures while delivering customer service always delight customers. PizzaHut always sizzles if you happen to host your birthday part in their restaurant. You celebrate your birthday in PizzaHut and their staff sing a song for you. Employees go out of their way to ensure that you have fun.

Simple rules but great results.

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