Say, your site goes down due to some sort of problems associated with your server on say, the 23rd of December, or on Christmas eve. You will be contacting your hosting company in frenzy, and just imagine if there’s nobody there to provide you with prompt support and resolution for your issue.By the time boxing day arrives, nobody will need to send gifts anymore to anyone. You have lost your business, and now your site and business has got a notorious reputation of not being active when it counts.

The above is just a worse case scenario explained to put forward a point. Quality support is the backbone of a hosting company. It is the pillar on which a hosting firm rests it’s credibility. Speedy and accurate customer service is rare and indicates a superior overall hosting service. When choosing a web host, what customers generally look for are Server performance, Space, Traffic allowed, Features, Cost, and most importantly Customer support.

If a hosting company is one which takes it’s business seriosly, their technical support must be perfect by all means. Determining whether technical support is dependable is important, because if anything goes wrong with your site, you are going to be contacting your know-it-all customer care rep. However, in the real world, we know that knowledgeable customer care is hard to find.

Most of the hosting companies claim that they have techs working round the clock in their organizations, managing their state-of-the art systems. While this in fact may be true, sometimes, the people working with the support might be the most unprofessional and underqualified ones. Due to the huge demand for information technology professionals today, many web hosts are not able to find employees who are well trained in OS concepts, network technology and control panel specifications. Other firms pump in a lot of money to advertising and marketing and gives good quality customer support only the lowest priority. In both instances, it is the customers who eventually suffers due to the lack of competence in handling their issues related to hosting.

The following is a small article gives a brief insight into the hosting support considerations for the newbies in business, as well as any host who have got high regards for the quality standards of their company. Before proceeding, please keep in mind the fact that Web Hosting Support is not child’s play. It is something that is NOT to be taken for granted.

Finding the Right Support for you

Finding the perfect support for your company is not a very easy task. Every webhost who have got serious thoughts about their hosting support would be having certain expectation levels regarding the quality of support. Only if your support matches / outperforms your expectations would you feel relaxed, relieved and be happy with them.

The very first concern regarding support is how to keep things going 24 / 7. Every webhost provides their customers with a 24 / 7 support promise, and some even give their customers a money back guarantee on any failure to keep up the promise. You should be implementing methods to ensure that your support team covers the 24 hours of the day effectively, and co-ordinate between them regarding the technical and administrative aspects of your servers.

Then comes the cost part. There are options for maintaining an inhouse team of technical experts, or outsourcing to an outsourced hosting support company. You should choose your support wisely with efficient computations of your expenditure and profit margin. You should do it in such a way that the quality of support is not compromised, and at the same time you have the decent profit to enhance your business in the long run. Please note that in the very beginning itself, you should set the standards, and should never go below them. Remember – It’s a jungle out there, with huge competition. If you have to survive, you have to be the best; and to be the best, you have got to give your customers the best. Manage high standards…. returns would come automatically.

Web hosting support not only means providing technical solutions to your end customers; but the sales / billing support and timely administration of your servers are equally important. You can manage the sales / billing issues yourself, or you can avail the aid of a graduate with good customer skills, and excellent knowledge on the packages / features / options that you provides. Regarding the server administration, you require the service of a good system administrator to perform the timely software upgrades, and the other fine tuning aspects of the server for it’s smooth functioning. It is always an additional advantage to maintain a team of technical experts who can perform your technical support as well as server administration; rather than having separate teams for the same. It would reduce the overall costs involved, and will enhance quality of customer support due to the better knowledge of the servers.

In-House or Outsourced??

Now comes the big question. Do you need an in-house team of technicians, or do you want to outsource your support to a support company? There has been disputes over this on most of the web hosting forums. Both the options has got advantages and disadvantages. But on tallying with the positive and negative sides of both of them, my vote goes to outsourced support. A comparison of the advantages is provided in the chart below:

ADVANTAGES

—————

In-House

1) Direct interaction with the support staff in person

2) Direct recruitment of the support staff yourself, so as to meet your ideal requirements on first-hand

3) Local market knowledge and expertise when it comes to sales and marketing

4) Ready availability-upon-call of your in house team in case of any emergency

Outsourced

1) Far cheaper than what is required to maintain an inhouse support team

2) You can concentrate on your business marketing, while the outsource company takes care of the technical side.

3) Expertise in specific fields related to every server software.

4) No hassles with the planning of shifts or personnel to manage the 24 / 7 support, as it is taken care of by the outsource company.

5) No issues associated with training the support staff.

Outsource companies are able to provide you with high quality, but cheap support due to the low cost of living standards in those countries. Most of the hosting companies are located in the United States, Canada and Europe, and the major outsource companies are located in countries like India. Due to the comparatively lower cost of living in countries like India, the above is made possible. With inhouse support, you have to pay the wages that is par with the living standards in the United States and such; which makes it an expensive option.

There are several myths related to outsourcing jobs. According to the trade and foreign aid research conducted by The Heritage Foundation , the American economy has only benefitted from outsourcing jobs to the asian countries, and has not gone down, as the general concept is.

But with outsourced support, you have got to make the right choice. Due to the huge demand for professionals in the ITES ( Information Technology Enables Services ), many webhosts can’t find employees with expertise in the relevant fields. You should be doing a research on the work culture and standards of the different outsourced companies before making the right source. A search for the leading outsourced companies in forums like http://webhostingtalk.com can provide you with pro and con views that you’ll require to make the decision.

Still, most of the outsourced companies provide you with a testing period of upto a month to test them out. You can utilize this time period to analyze the quality of your support company, if you are not sure about it.

The disadvantages associated with the two types of support are provided in the chart below:

DISADVANTAGES

——————

In-House

1) Expensive when taking into consideration the living standards in North America and Europe

2) Headaches related to personnel management related with maintaining an inhouse team for support

3) Remedies are to be made by you in case of any immediate non availability of support staff due to reasons like their resignation without prior notice, termination, expiry etc.

Outsourced

1) No direct interaction in person with the support staff. ( overcomed if efficient chat support is provided with a contact person at the company )

2) Have to get accustomed with your support people, as they might keep on changing according to the outsource company’s internal policies.

3) Have got to make sure of the written ( spoken too, if required ) language proficiency of the company staff, as English is not the mother tongue in the outsourced companies.

The language barrier could be an issue with only a few cheap quality outsourced support companies. It would be a good measure to talk to their representatives / contact points over chat / telephone to get an idea of how it’s going to be overall. With the leading support companies, the language problems should not happen, as they would have required formal training both technically, as well as with customer orientation. Still, it is very important from your part to make sure of their support quality.

To summarize, it is always better to choose a good outsourced support firm, that maintains it’s promises and does not comprise on quality, rather than yourself employing separate staff to handle your technical support, sales / billing and server administration. ( Unless you have got the money to roll, and is keen on having all your employees available in person upon your call )

The Quality Factor

Speaking of quality, what do one exactly mean by or point to when talking about the Quality of Support ( QoS ) ? Quality is not an accident, but the collective output of well planned stages of service, with the very best systems to back them up. When we refer to the complete QoS, there are a lot of points that comes into consideration – Being knowledgeable, Polite, Communicative, Honest, Fast, Empathetic, Competent, Responsible and above all, overall Perfection. Let’s check out how these becomes important.

Being knowledgeable is the most important part. Always keep in mind that our customers needs competent people at the receiving end of their mails and calls. By being knowledgeable, we mean that the support person should be possessing the proper knowledge level related to the support and service that we are offering. In this case, say, if you are a host who offers Cpanel hosting on Red hat Enterprise Linux servers, the technical support staff that works for you should be having extensive knowledge in the following areas:

Linux Operating System structure

Linux commands – common and advanced

Linux Internet server implementations

Linux server security

Differences between RHEL, and other versions of RedHat Linux, and also other distros and flavors of Linux. Proficiency in Unix / Solaris flavors will be an added advantage.

Cpanel control panel proficiency using both fronted tools ( administrative / user control panel interfaces ) and also the Cpanel control panel specific files in the backend of the servers

Overall, by being knowledgeable, it means that the support team must be well qualified and trained to handle the job that they are doing. Choose your team of experts wisely.

Responsibility of your support team is another important aspect. There is a lot of difference between a person who has undergone years of dedicated computer study in school and college doing this job, and a teenager with some computer background doing it part-time. The support team should be responsible in addressing various heterogeneous issues, and should also be good with the decision making related to the smooth functioning of the servers.

Say, one of your servers is having an issue with the apache server software running in the server being not compatible with PHP, as a result of a latest control panel upgrade. Your support team must not only be able to fix the immediate requests from customers hosted in this server, but should also be taking the necessary steps to identify the root cause of the issue, implement it in the server under question, and also check the rest of the servers ( if any ) for similar compatibility issues, and get them fixed, so that no unnecessary botherations are avoided for both the party – the customer and the support rep.

To sum up things, the support techs should not be just people to see off the day to day issues of the end customer, but they should be responsible so as to ensure that the server is fine tuned to see off any vulnerability associated with it, so that no issues arise from within the server as a result of an exploitation of that.

Then comes the communication part. This is as important as being knowledgeable. A support technician needs to address an issue raised by you or an end customer in grammatically correct language, and also including all the important points related to the issue, that the customer should be made aware of. A polite, consice and communicative reply addressing the various aspects of a support ticket always gives the end customer a feeling of care. A good support tech is one who empathises the client, i.e, think by standing in the client’s shoes. When a support person can feel the client’s problems, and read in between the lines, it puts the end client at ease, no matter what the issue is. Just take the case of the following scenario. A customer has published the following support ticket:

==============================================================

Hi,

I am not able to send mails out of my account user@foo.com. The mails are not going out of Outlook Express, and I am getting the following error:

Mail refused error “sorry that domain isn’t in my list of allowed rcpthosts error 553″

Please get it fixed ASAP. I am unable to contact my customers !!!

Paul Smith

==============================================================

And consider the following replies, which implies the same message, and tell me which one feels better:

Response # 1 :

==============================================================

This is since you are not doing POP before SMTP. Check your incoming mails, before trying to send them using OE.

Support team

==============================================================

Response # 2 :

==============================================================

Hi Paul,

This error is caused when email client software configured with multiple email accounts from different domains is used to send email to an account that it has not checked for messages first. To get over this, always make sure to check the incoming mails using your Outlook Express, before trying to send mails out of it. This is called POP before SMTP.

An easy remedy is to check your email from user@foo.com before sending or set your email client to check email every 15 minutes or close and reopen your Outlook Express. It shall work for you, and you shall be able to mail your customers in no time.

Best Regards,

Tech name

Support team

==============================================================

Upon examining the above two replies, what do you feel? No matter how frustrated the end customer who sent in the ticket might be, response # 2 will provide him with the “care factor” that response # 1 could not do. In response # 2, the support tech has done the following:

Analyzed that the customer is not very techny-savvy

Understood that he is trying to send in some important mail(s), and is frustrated with things not going working correctly for him

Replied the customer very politely and with atmost care keeping both the above two considerations in mind.

Support techs should always be polite to the customers. Some of the customers may even use harsh terms while mailing the support team, due to their frustration. A support tech should just ignore those comments, keeping in mind the fact that it is nothing personal and the customer is just angry with some utility not working for him properly. There are certain rare cases, when the support team receives really hard-to-interact-with customers. Some people might just do not understand what the support person is trying to say, or not listen what he is asking the customer to do. In these rare cases of non co operation, it is always better for the hosting owner ( you ) to respond to the customer asking him politely to co operate with the support team, or any solution to his problem might get unnecessarily delayed.

The overall perfection of a support team is the right combination of the following qualities:

1) Technical Superiority

2) Command over written and communicative skills

3) Politeness , Friendliness and Empathy

4) Responsibility

5) Endurance

The webhosts, on the other hand should also understand that the support team is an integral part of his business, and treat them with respect and consideration. The webhosting owner should be a good manager here, who knows how to make his support team work with their maximum potential for him. At the same time, he should not pressurize them by unnecessarily interfering in their job. Always keep them at ease, and make them feel free to approach you with any of their requirements / suggestions.

Conclusion

To conclude, when you appoint the support team, to assist with your business, make sure of the following things:

You get what you are promised of ( 24 / 7 support , and the exact time limits required to reply to, and resolve a problem )

Your support team co ordinates perfectly with you, and has got a good knowledge on the plans, services, and offers that you provide your clients with, so that they can be serviced better, and on time.

Your support team is friendly and courteous, and is always willing to go that ‘extra step’ when it comes to customer satisfaction.

Your support team is extremely knowledgeable and should be able to do anything that their job demands out of them.

You should be in excellent rapport with your support team, and should let them be at ease with you; and at the same time you should know where to draw the fine line as well.

In the webhosting business, where stiff competition awaits you, it is always the customer evangelism ( customers preaching the good points of your webhosting service ) that brings in clients. There is no publicity as mouth publicity. Your support team would be responsible for more than 80% of it. If they are good, your business shall flourish, and if it’s the other way around, you are going to have a tough time in the future.

So choose wisely. There is a bright future awaiting you.

This article explains how an enterprise can leverage increased value generation, thereby aiding competitive advantage, by adoption of the `Enterprise Value Generation Service Orientated Architecture Platform’ (SOAP).

The SOAP model presents a holistic, product independent, business-integrated approach to creating a customer-lead, transactional trust-based, market leading enterprise.

The model creates ‘transactional fold’ - between ‘customer desire & transactional trust’ and `enterprise customer intelligence’ - closing the ’service transaction gap’ by full alignment and integration of the business and service strategies as well as the interrelated layers - including ITIL (IT Infrastructure Library)- which represent the enterprises’ service portfolio. The primary benefits of which are:

? Increased business agility; responding quickly and efficiently to new business threats and opportunities ? Optimised business processes; introducing new and quickly change existing ? Reduced business and IT costs ? Greater reuse of IT assets ? Faster delivery of value to the business and its customers.

Introduction

The increasing importance of organisational agility within today’s global economy is the primary driver behind the rise and development of Service Orientated Architecture (SOA). A term coined around eight years ago, SOA is fast becoming the latest IT industry buzzword, defining how services can and are used to implement business processes whilst, providing an imperative for organisations seeking to grow and maximise not only customer current and latent needs but also, the ongoing customer relationship.

Parallel to the rise of SOA, the continuing growth of Internet users has spawned increasingly sophisticated use of web technologies and customer relationship management software in an attempt to leverage maximum revenue. Current statistics available indicate that as at February 3 2005, 817.5million people (12.7% of the world’s population) use the Internet; the monthly average growth of Internet users being 10.2 million per month from March 2003 to February 2005 (inclusive)1.

Indeed, every major vendor appears to now offer an SOA strategy with ’services’ forming the core of applications such as IBM WebSphere, Microsoft .NET, BEA WebLogic and Oracle 1Og. However, to focus SOA on IT delivery mechanisms only is to ignore major business opportunities. Only through full alignment and integration of IT and the business, a set of design and architecture principles and, a robust service delivery platform does SOA offer sustainable competitive advantage.

The SOAP model offers all of these as well as addressing age-old problems such as how to maintain customer loyalty and satisfaction levels whilst rapidly identifying emerging customer needs and desires.

The Need for SOAP As many companies collectively continue to spend billions on web and CRM technologies many have failed to meet management expectations in terms of return on investment. Part of the problem appears to be the piece-meal approach taken to implementation and, the absence of holistic and congruent business and service strategies focussed on the customer.

Many companies appear to have interpreted CRM as being all about the customer relationship in name only as often CRM metrics used to assess success are primarily based on cost savings via the automation of sales and service processes - by putting the responsibility onto the customer through self-service. Still worse, other companies implement CRM to gain only short-term revenue gains via targeted offers and cross-sell attempts. These tactical initiatives plainly do not underpin the building of lasting relationships.

Compounding these issues, a fundamental problem with CRM software is that it only records what the customer has actually bought and, when they bought it. The CRM software acting as a historic sales repository and personal contacts database. Though useful for marketing campaigns and carrying out trend analysis, the nature of the one-way transfer of information does not provide any opportunity for building trust. Indeed, mass e-mailings and unsolicited customer contact now creates information overload and represents a nuisance amongst customers as well as introducing a risk to the enterprise of facing fines under EU legislation2. So how to address this? Wish Lists. Wish lists provide the customer with the opportunity to tell you want they think they want or need - voluntarily. They create a two-way transaction the foundations of which are built purely on trust.

Clearly, therefore, SOA needs to focus on cementing long-term, collaborative relationships with customers based on mutual trust. Research has demonstrated many times that long-term customers are less costly to serve and that smooth-running relationships are less resource intensive. Companies with a strong reputation among customers also experience lower cost of capital and find their customers much more inclined to accept offers from firms they trust. Massad (2003)3 carried out doctoral research concerning Internet based customer transaction satisfaction. The research found that online purchasing service failures (online transactional or along the order fulfilment value chain) lead to low customer loyalty and repatronage rates and that, from the customer perspective, current online delivery methodologies are not robust enough to sustain even one service failure.

The research also found that most often the primary driver behind online purchasing behaviour is one of meeting deadlines. So for example, same day deliveries and customisation of the service offering should heighten perceived customer satisfaction levels and thus, heighten the probability of reorders/strengthen and develop the customer relationship. The key customer satisfiers identified within the research were:-

1. Timeliness of delivery of products ordered 2. Other service capabilities 3. Updating the customer 4. Perceived ease of navigation 5. Perceived price of products/services 6. Availability of products/services 7. Perceived ease of ordering 8. Past experience with service provider 9. Incentives 10. Perceived transactional security

Dissatisfiers were:-

1. Perceived effectiveness of communication 2. Perceived ease of exchange/returns/refunds 3. Perceived attitude 4. Billing accuracy 5. Perceived integrity of service provider

Underlying Principals of SOAP

Ever since Akerlof, Spence and Stiglitz4 won a Nobel Prize for their research regarding asymmetrical information in 2001, companies have been trying to either exploit the miss-match or, address the imbalance in an attempt to gain competitive advantage.

Asymmetrical information occurs when one party to a transaction has much better information than the other. For instance, a company’s customers have a much better idea of what they desire than the company providing the products or services. Equally, current Internet buying habits are primarily held back by ‘customer transactional trust’ concerns regarding credit card security etc.

In short, this is creating a ’service transaction gap’ in relation to bringing the customer closer to the enterprise. When the customer is brought closer to the enterprise - by folding the transactional gap and reducing the asymmetries of information - the enterprise is able to provide efficient, customised services and products to the customer as well as quickly identifying customer latent needs. Only a holistic Enterprise SOA - such as the SOAP model - can create a `transactional fold’ and bridge the gap creating enhanced Enterprise Customer Intelligence and, increased customer confidence and satisfaction levels.

A good example of an enterprise addressing such customer desires and concerns is amazon.com who provide customers with innovative ‘mass customisation’ options, and quality assurance by way of customer testimonials, fraud guarantees etc. These initiatives in turn provide amazon with the opportunity to track and monitor individual user browsing habits thereby allowing the opportunity to build an individualised ‘profile’ of their current and potential customers. Amazon, as an enterprise, is therefore continually expanding its ‘enterprise customer intelligence’ - the driving resource in determining organisational direction in terms of:

* Identifying market opportunities and, * Strengthening organisational capability.

Conclusion

Many companies are failing to meet the challenges and opportunities the Internet brought. Narrow, blinkered vision has interpreted the Internet as an ‘addition to’ rather than an ‘instead of’ sales, marketing and customer relationship channel. Only by investment, broad-brush strokes - inherently high risk - and full alignment of IT to the business will today’s enterprise survive and thrive.

Terminology:

Business Levers : - In the following order:- 1. People 2. Processes 3. Information 4. External Relationships 5. Organisational Structure

Customer Desire : Connected to the Customers’ ‘need to heal’5 Enterprise Customer Intelligence - Refers to the data, information and knowledge the enterprise has/holds regarding the customer, for example, order records, personal details, browsing habits etc. Knowledge Capital - The collective experience and knowledge of the enterprise held within employees. The effectiveness with which knowledge capital is put to use differentiates the successful and agile enterprise from the mediocre. Knowledge capital is enhanced and accessed by creating conceptual and transactional knowledge opportunity networks within the organisation; between all Departments.

Latent Needs : Customer needs the customer is not consciously aware of. Financially successful companies create products based on customer feedback - but rely more on inference and intuition as to what products will appeal to their target customers. The general process of learning about and satisfying customer needs, known as market orientation, has seen a shift from responsive market orientation (knowing what the customer believes he/she wants) to proactive market orientation (anticipating his/her needs). The more proactive market-oriented a business is the greater its new product success will be.6

Mass Customisation : The customisation and personalisation of products and services for individual customers at a mass production price7. Implemented via the new interactive technologies, like the Internet, which allow customers to interact with a company and specify their unique requirements. These are subsequently manufactured by automated systems.

Quality Assurance : Broadly, quality is a degree of excellence; the extent to which something is fit for its purpose. In the narrow sense, product or service quality is defined as conformance with requirement, freedom from defects or contamination, or simply a degree of customer satisfaction. In quality management, quality is defined as the totality of characteristics of a product or service that bears on its ability to satisfy stated and implied needs.

Service Transaction Gap : The gap between Customer Desire and Transactional Trust and, Enterprise Customer Intelligence.

Transactional Trust : “Trust” refers to relying on someone or something for a future action. The dictionary defines trust as having a confident dependence on the character, ability, strength, or truth of someone or something. From this perspective trust is a contingent emotional feeling, highly conditional in nature and subject to reappraisal. Transactional Trust originates with Customer perception, hearsay, guarantees, fraud prevention methods etc.

Transactional Fold : Closes the information asymmetries between the Enterprise and the Customer; by way of innovative, rapid response and integrated service layers. The enterprises’ expertise at this can be measured in terms of `transactional capabilities’.

Value Added Services : Not a form of basic service but services that add value to the total service offering. Characteristics include:- 1. Stands alone in terms of profitability and/or stimulates incremental demand for core service(s) 2. Can sometimes stand alone operationally 3. Does not cannibalise basic service unless clearly favourable 4. Can be an add-on to basic service, and as such, may be sold at a premium price 5. May provide operational and/or administrative synergy between or among other services - not merely for diversification

What puzzles me most is if bad customer service is such a death knell for business, why do so many businesses allow it to go on? Don’t they read my column, for Pete’s sake? I think the problem is that most bad customer service is doled out (or at least condoned) by business owners and managers who have ceased caring what their customers think. When you stop caring what your customers think it’s time to close the doors. Go find a day job. You’ll make someone a wonderfully disgruntled employee.

My latest parable of lousy customer service was actually experienced by my better half while attempting to buy my daughter a pair of basketball shoes. I won’t mention the name of the sporting goods chain store in which the bad customer service took place, but I will tell you that its name is similar to the sound a frog with hiccups might make.

As my wife waited for someone to assit, the four or five teenagers who had been charged with manning the store stood in a clump at the cash register giggling and flirting with one another as if they were at the prom instead of at work.

When my wife pointed out this fact, one of the employees, a cheeky lass of 16 or so, put her hands on her hips and said, “How rude!” The males in the group didn’t react at all. They were too busy arguing over who could take a break so they could chase other cheeky lasses about the mall.

Needless to say my lovely bride, who has the ability to instill fear into the hearts of even the most worthless employees, left the gaggle of giggling teen idiots standing with their mouths open in disbelief. How dare a customer tell them to do that with a pair of basketball shoes?

As much as I bemoan bad customer service I celebrate good customer service. It should be applauded and the purveyor of said good customer service should be rewarded for actually delivering satisfaction to the customer, above and beyond the call of duty.

So let me tell you the story of my new hero, Ken. I won’t tell you the name of the store in which Ken works, but let’s just say they started out selling radios in a shack somewhere long, long ago.

I first met Ken when I went into the store to buy a mixing board for my business that records audio products for the Web. In a nutshell, you plug microphones into the mixing board then connect it to the computer and you can record audio directly to digital format. Totally beside the point of this article, but I didn’t want you thinking that I was purchasing non-manly cooking utensils.

When I got the mixer installed it didn’t work. So I boxed it up and headed back to the store to return it. When I told Ken my problem he didn’t just grunt and give me my money back as so many bad customer service reps would do. Instead he asked, “Do you mind if I try it?”

“Knock yourself out,” was my reply, confident that if I couldn’t get it to work, neither could Ken. Ken took the mixer out of the box and went about hooking it up to one of the computers on display. He started pulling power cords and cables off the display racks and ripping them open and plugging them in. He tore open a new microphone and an adapter and kept going until he had the mixer hooked up and working. Yes, I said working. It turns out the mixer was fine. I just had the wrong power adapter.

Ken could have just given me my money back and been done with me. Instead he spent 15 minutes and opened a number of other packages that I was under no obligation to buy just to help me get the thing working.

I was so impressed that I not only kept the mixing board, I also bought another $50 worth of products. And the next time I need anything electronic guess where I will buy it? Even if it costs twice as much, I’ll buy it from Ken.

Now here’s the moral of the story: if you are a business owner who has a gaggle of teenagers in charge of customer service at your store you would be better off replacing them with wild monkeys.

At least monkeys can be trained.

The list goes on. And it happens all the time. Poor customer service is so rampant in this country that we’ve come to expect it.

Maybe that explains why most disgruntled customers don’t bother to complain to organizations that don’t give them quality service, they simply take their business elsewhere. They’d rather walk than talk.

Yes, I know, you’ve heard this before. Just as you’ve heard about the research revealing that unhappy customers do talk to their friends and family. According to customer satisfaction research studies, the average unhappy customer will tell nine or ten people about the poor service he or she received. In other words, large numbers of dissatisfied customers are routinely deserting organizations that displease them and are encouraging their friends to do likewise.

It’s a familiar message. You’ve heard it, your children have heard it, your dog has heard it; for the past few years everybody has heard it. Service excellence! That’s what consumers need!

Companies have certainly heard it. All sorts of organizations are striving to improve their customer service orientation. Hotels, hospitals, airlines, and online businesses now flood their customers with service quality surveys. Everywhere you look you see customer-contact people with service theme buttons on their lapels. Companies spend millions on training programs aimed at improving their employees’ service skills. Customer service has been woven into the fabric of so many corporate credos you’d think abrasive employees would be an extinct species by now.

Yet despite all of this, only a handful of organizations have managed to achieve a standard of consistently excellent service. For some reason, it just isn’t as easy as it sounds.

I think the problem is this: A lot of companies operate on the basis of some pervasive myths that make it difficult if not downright impossible, to achieve first-rate customer service.

1. The quality myth

“Pay attention to quality, and customer service will take care of itself.” Many organizations focus a lot of effort on manufacturing quality. Quality gurus like W. Edwards Deming, Philip Crosby, and Genichi Taguchi have helped hundreds of companies use techniques such as statistical processes control to increase the quality of their products dramatically. But these efforts are often thought to be the sole answer to remaining competitive.

Reality: Quality and service are interdependent. It’s impossible to describe quality adequately without considering it from the customer’s point of view. If your product can’t do what your customer wants it to do, it doesn’t matter if your engineering department is proud of its innovative design and your manufacturing department can boost a terrific production record.

Even if you measure product quality from the customer’s point of view, however, that alone does not ensure customer satisfaction. A superbly manufactured product with poor sales and service support will breed aggravated customers. How many products have you vowed never to buy again because of the poor service you associate with them?

Organizations that pursue quality improvements as the answer to all their problems are misguided. It is only part of the answer. Without superior customer service, efforts to improve product quality will be wasted.

2. The complaint myth

“Good customer service is a matter of knowing how to handle complaints.” “Call 800-111-2222 or contact us at www. customerservice.com if you have any complaints.” “Let us know if you’re unhappy with your room; we’ll change it.” “Please fill out this form. We want to hear from you.”

Companies have poured millions of dollars into making sure their customers have a chance to complain, complain, complain. The problem is, many of these companies never make strategic use of the complaints. And more often than not, they fail to provide complainers with satisfactory responses.

Reality: Without resolution, or at least some response, customers’ complaints are just so much hot air. A company that focuses solely on complaint handling may win a few battles, but it will lose the war to keep customers satisfied. And this approach is no solution for the great majority of dissatisfied customers who never complain, but simply walk away.

Superior customer service involves much more than handling complaints. It means striving to provide customers with no reason to complain in the first place. Strategies aimed at consistently meeting and exceeding customer expectations are a must for achieving service excellence.

None of this suggests that you can forget about complaint handling, but it must be an integral part of a broader service strategy. Well-managed companies see customer complaints as a way to learn: What lesson can we derive from this complaint that will improve our service in the future? Successful companies also see complaints as opportunities to impress customers by going to any lengths necessary to resolve the situation to the customer’s satisfaction. In other words, successful companies pay attention to complaints, but dedicate most of their efforts to preventing whatever caused the complaints in the first place.

3. The quick-fix myth

“Good service is simply good common sense.” Many organizations try to take the easy road to improving service. They believe that by adopting a new service policy, introducing a new training program, or giving stirring pep talks to their employees, they’ll become known for their excellent service.

Reality: This is the most lethal myth of all. As we’ve seen, it’s not easy to achieve service excellence. There are no shortcuts or quick fixes. Organizations that build their reputations on service do so by observing not just one, but every “reality” there is to providing excellent customer service.

Good training without adequate selection is a waste of time and money. Carefully selected and well-trained service employees who are not empowered to look for ways to improve customer service quality are a waste of precious resources. Good service comes only from a well-executed, coherent strategy. All the pieces of the puzzle need to be in place.

The way we treat customers, listen to their needs and strive to meet their expectations will make the critical difference. We can continue to perpetuate the myths. Or we can face the realities, and take action to change.

1. A complaining customer is:
A. Always right
B. Almost right
C. Often lying
D. Always the customer

2. Customers who complain:
A. Had unhappy childhoods
B. Are genetically predisposed to be sourpusses
C. Have trouble in their primary relationships
D. Are doing you a service in identifying what isn’t working in your business or organization

3. The best reward for your customer service representatives is:
A. Earplugs and punching bags
B. Valium or other mind-numbing drugs
C. Recognition and appreciation on your part
D. Anger management seminars

4. CRM stands for:
A. Customers Rarely Matter
B. Can’t Remember Much
C.Communicating Random Meaning
D. Customers Rudimentarily Managed
E. Customer Relationship Management

5. Customers who complain want . . .
A. Something for nothing
B. To be heard and have their experience validated
C. To vent for the sport of it
D. To be made majority shareholders in the company

6. Customer Service departments:
A. Are the afterthought that cleans up messes other departments cause
B. Build customer loyalty
C. Are leaders in understanding customer behavior patterns and market research

7. For a company to be considered service-oriented:
A. It must mention customer service in its mission statement
B. At least 18.3% of its employees must work in the customer service department
C. Its managers must at one time have been CSRs
D. Customer service must be addressed by all departments

8. A Call Center is defined as:
A. The midpoint in duration of a telephone call
B. A revenue sink hole
C. A place where middle-of-the-road calls coexist with liberal and arch-conservative calls
D. A location where complaints and problems are converted into successful saves for your customers and your company

9. Customer Care is:
A. A managed care medical program for customers
B. A nifty alliterative phrase that looks good in company brochures
C. A new program where customers care for themselves
D. A philosophy wherein the customer is wrapped in service even before a problem arises

10. Customer Service Culture is
A. A new form of yogurt where the lid removes itself for you
B. Behavior being analyzed in a Petrie dish for contagions
C. A mythical civilization in which everyone smiles and welcomes you when they meet
D. An environment where customer service permeates the thinking of the entire company

KEY

1. D. Customers are often wrong but they never stop being the customer. Right or wrong they are to be accorded respect and cared for. Focus on the insights their complaint offers.

2. D. Complaining customers alert you to systemic problems before they drive off more customers. Their complaints represent many more customers who may not spend the time to tell you about problems, instead just leaving you for your competitors.

3. C. Your staff deserves and thrive on recognition and appreciation. Take the time to celebrate them collectively and individually. Whether through cards, gifts, surprises, outings and acknowledgements at company functions, let them know how important, valued and appreciated they are to you and the company.

4. E. CRM refers to systems designed to track and cater to each customer’s whims and preferences over a lifetime. CRM is about managing customer relationships over the long haul by attending to their individual needs.

5. B. Complaining customers have several needs. Implicit in their actual complaint is also a need to be heard and their unhappiness acknowledged. Fixing the problem is important. So is letting them know you understand their displeasure and feel for them. One without the other is an incomplete remedy for customer complaints. Don’t forget the emotional component in complaints.

6. B and C. When you solve a problem for a customer you actually build confidence and allegiance. You’ve proven you stand behind your products or service, giving customers a warm and fuzzy feeling of safety and protection. As well, you tap the pulse of the customers. Their complaints and feedback give valuable insight into how well your products are assembled, documented, sold and hold up. Listening to customers tells you a great deal about your company’s products and services (and your competitors’ too) from real life customers. That’s invaluable!

7. D. A Customer Service orientation must transcend the service department. All departments must understand and model good customer service for the company to be considered strong in service. Many problems can be avoided outright by attending to customer service. Why should the customer service department carry the weight of service for the entire company. Don’t operate under the adage “never enough time to do it right but always enough time to do it over.” Get it right at the source, in all departments.

8. D. Make your call center is a shining example of your company’s commitment to its customers. Your center is a visible symbol of your company’s commitment to customer success.

9. D. Customer Care is a philosophy wherein customers are cared for by a company - the entire time they’re customers. Care isn’t just to be administered as a salve for problems. Demonstrate care from the start and your customers will flock to your products and services.

10. D. Customer Service Culture is the infusion of service ideals into every department, from sales, shipping and receiving to legal, human resources and beyond.

For those of you who may be unfamiliar with the term “upsell,” let me use an example from one of the world’s most famous companies to illustrate this point:

When people walk into the fast-food giant, McDonalds, to order a simple hamburger or a Vanilla shake, without fail they are presented with the phrase that has helped this company dominate the fast-food market:

“Would you like fries with that?” Other fast food outlets will ask you, “Would you like a drink or an apple pie with your meal?” This is another very effective example of an upsell.

These fast food giants sell millions of dollars worth of extra food and drinks worldwide every year because they know how to effectively use an upsell. So now you may be saying that that is all well and good for McDonalds, but I am in a totally different business. I don’t sell fast-food.

Upsell for internet marketing success

Upselling your customers is simply providing the next logical solution to your customer’s next logical need. It’s your job to always create that next logical need and continually sell and sell. There’s always one more thing to sell.

One of the major mistakes I find in dealing with small businesses is that they believe once their business has provided their product to the customer, that’s the end of the process. There’s nothing that could be further from the truth.

Every sale needs another sale because every need that’s satisfied will create still another need sometime in the future. The conclusion you should draw is that you need to create the upsell and continue creating upsells as a neverending logical step in the launching of an effective marketing mission.

You might say, I don’t have any product or service to sell as an upsell. My answer to that is, develop one.

Even if you don’t produce the product or service, someone else does and that someone else gladly will pay you to allow them to have access to your client base so they can upsell your customers. There’s always something else to sell them.

The practical implications to upselling will most likely result in forming joint venture relationships. Businesses today operate differently than before.

Another good example can be seen in mail-order flowers. On the average, there’s actually 6-10 days from the cutting of a flower before a customer receives it and puts it in a vase in his/her home, whether as a gift or simply to brighten up the home. The lag time is caused by the traditional distribution system of wholesalers, distributors, and retailers. A real entrepreneur, who worked literally for years on an idea for flower delivery in up to 9 days, created a direct from the grower to the customer via Federal Express. Today, that generates $10,000,000 in sales. What was the entrepreneur’s product? It was an idea worth $10,000,000.

That business is merely a series of relationships between a catalogue company, Federal Express, and several independent flower growers throughout the United Slates. It’s a business of joint ventures. Even though this guy didn’t actually have the product or service, he created one.

This leads us to finding Your Business Within Your Business. A real powerful concept is to challenge yourself, your clients, vendors, and employees to constantly search for new businesses within your business.

There are an unlimited number of offshoot businesses you can create. You can have an offshoot of consulting to those people you sell to. You could then communicate and market and also do seminars and workshops.

For car dealers, they can provide extended warranties and insurance to new car owners. For a contractor, whether it’s heating and cooling, pools, pest control, or whatever, they can also provide annual service contracts.

An example would also be a pool contractor, who for instance, might use upselling through the offering of an annual service contract to clean and service a pool four times a year. This can dramatically improve his bottom line. In fact, this can actually double the value of your customers by an added income of 40% when they sign an annual contract.

Let’s say the service call for a pest control or pool service call is $100 and there are 100 customers per year. There’s a gross of $10,000, which is $100 per customer. The upsell strategy is an annual contract where you’re going to visit four times a year. The cost for each visit to the customer is $100, so the total cost at this point is $400 (before giving a discount.)

If they buy today, you give them a discount of $150, so $250 is the cost to the customer. If you close just 40% of these people, your new revenue is $10,000. 40% of 100 is 40 people times $250 which is the cost of the annual contract.

So, the new value of these 100 customers is $20,000, $10,000 for the service call ($100 x 100 customers) and another $10,000 for the 40 people who paid $250 for the annual contract. The value per customer is now $200. You made $20,000. You still have the same 100 customers. They’re now worth $200. That’s double the value.

What service can you upsell to your clients? Virtually every business can add a newsletter or an extra month of a diet plan for half the original price. Maybe a consulting service could be provided. The possibilities are endless. Let your creative mind work for your business instead of limiting it to just one product or service.

Begin by making it as easy as possible for people to purchase what you are selling. That means, taking phone orders, accepting as many methods of payment as possible, having a toll-free number, having a Web site where they can make purchases, and arranging your days and hours around the lives of your customers. This is crucial because many studies have shown that service is the third most important factor influencing a purchase decision, ranking right after confidence and quality.

In order to provide excellent customer service it is important that every single person in your company feels the same sense of wanting to provide superb customer service. It is the wanting that will make the big difference.

Service is an ongoing function, starting with a customer’s first contact with you, making itself apparent during the time of the sale, and continuing on well after the delivery of your product or service. Follow-up service means repeat and referral sales, the best kind. Customers may have never heard of the concept of a customer-oriented business, but you can be sure that they know when a business is not.

Service should always be speedy, courteous, and better than the customer ever thought it would be. Give more than they expect and you’ve made a friend for life. Never ignore or argue with a customer. Service means solving your customer’s problems, attending to their needs, making their lives better because they bought what you are selling. Always try to think like your customer.

As marketing expert Jay Abraham so often says, to provide excellent customer service, you have to stop falling in love with your product or service and start falling in love with your customers.

If you want to provide excellent customer service you need to:

* Set the highest possible standards of performance for your business and everyone involved in it.

* Not only know what your customers want but also what they need.

* Know that customer expectations must be understood and managed before they can be met and exceeded.

* Design your products and services to maximize customer satisfaction.

* Bend over backwards trying to be an easy company to do business with.

* Realize that the money you invest in customer service will pay off in satisfaction for customers and profits for your business.

* Build rapport and trust. Always be honest with your customers. People do business wiht ethical people they can trust.

* Make sure everyone in your company knows that customer service is his or her responsibility.

Great customer service is really a matter of common sense. Always try to think like your customers and you’ll soon know what their needs and wants are. And always remember that people don’t buy products or services, they buy results. So if you want to succeed in business you’d better provide excellent service that not only fulfills but also exceeds their expectations.

The more specific you are about the superior performance, benefit, or advantage of your product or service, the more successful your marketing message will be, regardless of the medium you use. The reason is simple: Consumers hear claims of product superiority all the time. They’ve become immune. They’ve learned to tune out this generic fluff.

But a specific claim carries much more weight. It gives credibility to your arguments. It resonates with the potential purchaser and makes your claim stand out from the rest.

Think about it. All other things being equal, if you’re buying a product or a service and one does very little for you and one does seemingly two or three times more for you, which one are you going to buy? The choice is simple.

But how do you measure the value of your product or service? Start by examining what goes into your product or service. If you are not the manufacturer or creator of it, you must go to whomever is, you must go to the source. Ask them to share with you all their data, all the clinical, technical, research, testing, and compatibility data they may have accumulated on the product or service in application.

You need to focus on three things:

1. What was the product engineered to do and why?

2. What components went into it to assure that it would perform?

3. What process did they go through to create the product or service?

In other words, if the purpose of a manufacturer’s pipe is to transport fluid underground and last for 30 years, what makes the manufacturer think it will do that? Well, they probably tested it. They probably manufactured it with material that was corrosion-proof and resistant to freezing under temperatures far below zero. You’ve got to find out all those factors.

In addition, you’ve got to analyze the process that was necessary to create the product or service. For example, if you own a clothing store, perhaps you traveled 20 times around the country and attended over 60 different trade shows to find the best merchandise, or get the best values for your customers. Perhaps you looked at 150 separate manufacturing lines to be able to choose 25 that were unique and fashionable enough to be sold in your store.

Once you have analyzed what went into the creation or production of the your product or service, the next thing you want to do is ask, “How does it compare against the competition. For example, if you are offering a suit that’s $500 and a competitor is offering a suit that’s $500 But yours is made with 25% silk If that difference is something that adds value, you should say so.

Remember, however, that it’s very important to translate value into an end-result benefit for your customer. In other words, don’t just say that because the suit is made of 25% silk it is better. That may be true but unless your customer is a tailor, It’s a meaningless claim. You have to explain to your customer that the 25% silk content will make the suit hold its shape better, respond to dry cleaning better, last an average of 50% longer for the same amount of money.

Don’t sell the features for any reason other than for their logical connection to a benefit or a result. The only reason features are even relevant is because they are a conduit, or a bridge for you to take the customer over to reach a bottom-line benefit. For example, if you’re selling flat screen or plasma televisions, what is the ultimate benefit? The benefit may be four times more clarity or four times more realistic picture than any other screen you can buy for up to twice the money. You’ve got to look at it that way, translating the feature into a tangible benefit for the customer.

When comparing your product or service to your competitors, according to customer survey results, the most effective comparisons deal with performance. The second most effective factor is composition, the components, elements, or ingredients. This is followed by the process that went into creating it, and lastly, the design or standards on which it’s based.

Although, these survey results apply most directly to products it also applies to services as well. For example, an accountant, may promote that he or she will save you 45% off of your annual tax bill which is the most effective (performance). Slightly less effective would be a claim that he or she would focus on 12 specific deductions that are often overlooked (composition). And even less effective would be if the accountant states that he or she has more than 400 hours of continuing education thereby keeping up on the latest accounting techniques (process).

Never overlook the value that your existing customers can give you. Interview them in person or in phone. You can have them complete questionnaires in the customer only section of your Web site or simply e-mail a customer questionnaire to them.

Explain to them that you want to know how your product or service performs in their own personal experience. In the interview or the questionnaire start off by taking them back to a time before they were using your product or service, when they were using either an alternative or nothing at all. Find out what it was like for them. The best part of getting information directly from you customers, is that, in the process, you are going to get excited about the value, benefit, and meaning you make in a customer’s life. And as you get more excited, you are going to sell with more certainty, conviction, and passion.

You’re going to realize, maybe for the first time, that your product or service adds enormous, tangible, and measurable meaning to someone’s life. The sooner you measure the value and benefits of your product or service, the sooner your bottom line will begin to skyrocket!

A few months ago, I ordered a gift of steaks and roasts from a meat mail order business for some family members. When no acknowledgement came, I called to find out if they had gotten their present. As it turned out, the parcel delivery service had left the package at the wrong address, but the people who had received it in error were honest enough to immediately call the intended recipients to let them know about the mix up.

The only person who had made a mistake was the delivery man who’d misread the mailing label, and no one ever heard a word out of him or his company. The same can’t be said for the meat company. In its relentless pursuit to keep customers satisfied, company representatives started calling me–daily–to make sure I was still happy and to see if I didn’t want to order more meat.

After the umpteenth call that resulted in no additional purchases from me, I asked to have my name and number removed from the calling list. Being nice hadn’t worked. Maybe some force would be more effective. Keep in mind I had had absolutely no beef with the mail order company until now. It was at this point, however, that customer service attention turned into customer obsession.

I thought I’d gotten the point across, but about a week later I started receiving calls at my work number. When I would take advantage of the caller ID feature on my phone, I saw an area code and number I didn’t recognize. I answered in my usual way, but each time the caller said nothing and simply hung up. This happened several times until I checked the number and discovered it was the cattle crew. This was out of control. I’d said no from my home number. The answer wasn’t going to be any different on my business line. Now they were intruding on my work day without saying a word.

One final call (and I emphasize the word final) came at 9:17 p.m. last week. Dinner was long over, and no one in the house was thinking about food, especially not about T-bones. No one was consciously thinking about anything since we were all asleep. It had taken almost an hour to get the three-year-old to quit fussing about having to go to bed, but at last he’d drifted off. That is, until the phone rang. I was roused from a very deep sleep by the phone ringing and our child yelling for Mommy.

Too unawake to check the caller ID, I answered. To my utter amazement, it was another company rep wanting to know if I was ready to order more filets. It was time to take this bull by the horns. “No,” I said, “not now, not ever again!” I can’t remember exactly, but I’m sure I pointed out that I’d asked to have my name and number removed from their list. That he had had the audacity to call so late in the evening was absolutely beyond my comprehension.

This experience is a clear illustration of how customer service can go terribly wrong. Probably part of this was due to someone misreading the data and assuming that since I had placed a substantial order, I would likely do so again. Who knows? Maybe I would have at a later time, but the “overkill” from the sales staff turned out to be a deal breaker as far as I’m concerned.

Let this be a cautionary tale for any businesses out there that think “hard selling” is going to work every time. In many cases it will backfire and have just the opposite effect from the one you want.

I’ve recently conducted a less-than-statistically-valid study polling people (my office manager, my aunt, and a very nice woman behind me in a line at Safeway) about customer disservice. Although not all the results are in, here are ten tips to take to heart to keep your customers truly satisfied:

1. Just because your business model says customers should, in all probability, be interested in buying something, don’t assume they’re kidding when they tell you no.

2. Limit unsolicited calls to the same person.

3. Call at a reasonable time.

4. After you hear “Hello,” really listen to what the other person says to you.

5. Don’t argue when the customer says “no.”

6. Honor the customer’s wishes.

7. If you are offering service to someone in person, be available, but don’t hover.

8. An internet order does not give you authorization to call someone at home or work to offer add-on purchases or services.

9. Know that a lot of people have caller ID, so don’t call and hang up without saying something.

10. Ask yourself: Would you want to get the call you’re getting ready to make?

This is just a starting point. Maybe you have some pet peeves of your own. If so, send them to our website. There are plenty of people we like to hear from. Just don’t contact me about buying anything that was standing on four legs and had a pulse until recently. I’m now a vegetarian thanks to the last person who did!