Walt Disney

Walt Disney

Let’s put this under the microscope. It’s a fairly general quotation but promises an outcome based on your company’s behavior. At the heart of the quotation is the meeting of strategy and execution.

The behavior is to do what you do well. There are a few pre-requisites to this. First you need to understand what it is you do. For customer service teams you should consider having an operations manual. This manual should be at the heart of your company.

Doing it so well that customers tell their friends is a whole new ball game. This comes down to delivery:

1. Training: Based on the operating handbook, ensure that your staff know what they’re doing
2. Monitoring: Know how the team are doing at executing the handbook. Watch for both the good and bad and use it to drive further training
3. Appraisal: Let staff know what’s going on. Give them performance targets and ensure that they know how they are progressing

The story has been done to death by the New York Times and the Search Engine Optimisation blogs but I’m going to take a fresh look from a customer service point of view.

What is AbuseRank or BadRank

Each link to your website is a vote for it. The better the website that links to you the more the vote counts for. For years sites have been manipulating this by selling links from their sites to other websites. As revealed by the New York times this algorhythm has been manipulated by websites deliberately providing the worst service conceivable. The service is so bad that people blog or write about it. Each story about their bad service is a link to the website.

The more bad stories, the more links. More links equals a better search engine.

The long and short of it is that Google has been promoting sites which offer a poor experience to the user.

To combat this Google is now going to penalise sites where it detects that people are poor sentiment about your website. This sounds good at first glance but it’s something the service teams need to understand.

How Customer Service Teams Should Respond

Here are my recommendations on what you should be doing:

1. Monitor what is said about your company and reach out to dissatisfied customers to rectify the situation
2. Provide a great service – after all prevention is better than a cure
3. Encourage customers to write good reviews by providing outlets on your website and social media channels
4. Ensure that the process for complaint through your company is straightforward and reconcilatory

It was said that on the internet a customer who has had a bad experience will tell 6,000 people. Typically they’ll tell others out of a sense of frustration. Perhaps even hopelessness. By following the steps above you can not only improve your customer service but also increase your search engine ranking!

It’s a fact that brain storming in the traditional sense does not work.

Those who are shy or retiring fall to the back, whilst the loudest and more forceful push their views on the group.

Customer experience planning needs to consider the needs of the many which is why you can’t afford to be ruled by the big mouths in your company. The following activity works well in management meetings to get everyone’s ideas on the table.

Write the following headings on a white board:

• Pre-sales
• Delivery
• Post-sales

Now provide everyone in the room with yellow and pink Post It notes. Instruct them to write on the yellow post it notes information you send to the customer. For example in pre-sales this may be the price. Now on the pink notes write down what further information the customer may need such as “Clarification on cancellation procedures”.

You can change this to focus on what stages the customer goes through. For example in Delivery a stage may be “Sending out customer information pack” and an improvement would be to “Follow up on receipt of the pack by phone”,

Once everyone’s written 3 things for each stage. Ask them to stick their post it notes to each section on the white board. If another note says the same thing put it next to it so that they’re touching. At the end review some of the answers. Which items on the post it notes should be put into action and improved. Ask whether the items are in line with your business objectives.

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Whilst both disciplines are ultimately responsible for increasing customer satisfaction and improving the organisation’s profitability, there are key differences between them.

To illustrate from the customer/client’s point of view:

The customer walks into the shop and is immediately welcomed by a member of staff who offers them a basket (shoppers who carry a basket round a shop spend 13% more on average).

They select a few items from the shop and proceed to pay for them at the checkout. The staff member checks that the customer was able to find everything, processes the sale and thanks them for their custom before saying farewell.

How Customer Experience were involved

The decision to place a member of staff near the door and what they say should be determined by customer experience.

The handing out of baskets is also a customer experience strategy.

Customer experience create the process for the checkout experience. They instruct what customers should be asked if the found everything. They should determine where the till goes and what is diplayed on the electronic signage. They should also study the receipt; what it says and how legible it is for the customer. Does it contain returns information?

Finally the manner of thanking of the customer should be directed by the customer experience team. If they didn’t provide guidelines, the staff will choose their own tone and you can read on this blog why “cheers mate” isn’t right. (Don’t call me mate blog post).

Post sale customer experience should be following up with the customer service team and customer to see how the experience went.

How Customer service were involved

• Customer service ensured that a staff member was on the door
• Customer service ensured that the staff member presented themselves well and understood the correct way to greet customers
• Customer service ensured that the store was presentable to the customer and offered help to customers who are browsing
• Customer service processed the sale efficiently, politely and most importantly in line with the guidelines set by customer experience

Customer experience is strategy. Customer service is delivery.

Neither function is more important than the other. Both have their place to play and neither function should consider itself more vital than the other. Customer experience teams need to be humble and remember that even if their strategy is poor, the service team can still deliver a top notch experience. The customer service team to need to follow what is set forward by the experience team.

Both parties should work together collaboratively to come up with the best experience for the customer.

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This is where YouTube can really help you deliver an amazing customer experience. Video content is very accessible and can explain in two minutes what it could take one of your staff two hours.

It also provides a great cost saving initiative as your website and call handling team can direct people with problems directly to YouTube rather than trying to resolve the issue through words or text. Panasonic have done this well with their Tips and Tricks channel which provides information on setting up and using their equipment.

To get started with producing video guides get a decent camcorder, some movie editing software and start recording!

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The base rules:

1. Never confuse sir with madam or madam with sir
2. If in doubt don’t use a name or title just change the sentence
3. Err on the side of caution – opt for “sir” instead of “mate” and “madam” instead of “sweetheart”
4. Unless instructed otherwise be formal in your language
5. Be cautious when using female titles. Some women can be sensitive about the use of Miss or Mrs. It may be appropriate to confirm the title by asking “Our records say Mrs Bloggs, is this correct” or “Would it be ok if I called you Jane today?”
6. If the customer holds a formal title such as Dr, Prof, Rev or Lord be certain to use this unless personally instructed otherwise

What is you experience of addressing customers? Does it matter what title you use and have you had any good or bad experiences of it? Share your story in the comments below.

Further reading:

• Free customer service training ideas
• Using a customer service blog to improve satisfaction
• Using Twitter automation

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Twittering takes time. It can take a lot of time. Logging on to check that update from a friend, finding out how many mentions or retweets you have, reading the latest blog posts that’s been sent out. It truly is addictive stuff and there’s enough new, interesting, relevant and different content to keep you coming back. However if you’re like me you just can’t afford to spend that much time making updates, finding the right people to follow and improving your profile.

This is where TweetAdder has been a revelation for me.

Some of my colleagues and friends have described it as being spammy and whilst I agree that it can be used in that way, it’s can be used in a very ethical way. As the SEO fraternity would say, in a white hat way.

So here is my guide on how to get the most from TweetAdder:

1. Use the Tweet automation tool well

The Tweet automation tool allows you to create a list of Twitter updates and then schedule these to be posted at a randomised time. Each morning and lunch time as I scan through my RSS feeds I pick the best and most interesting articles and tweets, and add them to the Tweet list. Tweet automation then drip feeds them out to my followers who don’t get all my Tweets in one bulk update.

2. Use the Auto Retweet tool sparingly

The Auto-Retweet tool should in my opinion only be used if you’re a corporate account retweeting employees’ tweets or an employee retweeting your corporate messages.

3. RSS Automation should be connected to your company blog

I’ve connected my company’s blog to the RSS automation tool and now each time a blog is added a Tweet is automatically sent out to my followers. This saves me having to remember to do it and again distributes relevant and interesting content to my colleagues.

4. Auto Following and Unfollowing

As I see it we follow people for two reasons:

a) We can get something of value from them such as free content or a reciprocal follow and RT to their followers
b) Reciprocal follows, thanks for following me I’ll follow you in return

The Profile Data Search and Tweet search provide new ways to identify those who fulfil point a) for us. We then hope that they feel the pressure of point b) in return.

My reason for using Twitter is to generate more business for my web agency. Therefore I’m searching for those who are in a position to purchase our services or can provide information that will help my company’s services (such as SEO research blogs).

How to get started

Purchase TweetAdder, prices start from a very reasonable $55 although some people may wish to purchase the $188 unlimited account license. This is great if you’re a social media manager with multiple personas to manage.

Watch the tutorial videos (it’ll take 20 minutes) and then you’re away…remember though don’t spam people!

Purchase TweetAdder

One of my favourite parts on the graphic are the quotes which include:

• “A man without a smiling face must not open a shop.” Chinese Proverb
• “Although your customers won’t love you if you give bad service your competitors will.” Kate Zabriskie
• “Alone we can do so little. Together we can do so much.” Helen Keller
• “Always do more than is required of you.” George S. Patton
• “Ask your customers to be part of the solution and don’t view them as part of the problem.” Alan Weiss
• “A customer is the most important visitor on our premises. He is not dependent on us- we are dependent on him.”

Read more: http://blog.kissmetrics.com/great-customer-service/#ixzz12B5MloU6

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Even if your organisation isn’t registered with the ICS, you should still get involved. Make this week about improving customer service.

For Managers: Review customer service strategy in your organisation. Is the strategy clear? Discuss what to do next with your peers and go out of your way to celebrate service successes.

Hold a training session on good customer service skills.

For Customer Service Representatives: Ask your boss the golden question of what can I do better? Also ask your customers “what can I do to help you further?”. Make call backs to customers to check in on them and again ask what you can do.

I’m of the opinion that customer service is pretty simple: Just ask, listen and then act.

I’d be interested in hearing what you’ve been doing for National Customer Service week. Share your stories through the comments below!

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Tip 1: Keep it short

People are busy so keep the session short and sweet. Research shows that people’s attention peaks and then quickly drops at 45 minutes. Keep the session under that length.

Tip 2: Keep it Light

This is not the time to start blaming and criticising. Training should be an upbeat activity that everyone can enjoy! Try implementing games to make training entertaining and memorable (The Big Book of Customer Service Training Games).

Tip 3: Be Real

Talk about real clients. Talk about the real business challenges. This is one of the huge benefits of doing your own internal training session.

Tip 4: Situational Training

Ask yourself where the team are at. Do they lack enthusiasm but have plenty of skill? Or do they lack the skills and are keen as mustard?

Gear the training around their mindset and you’ll reap the benefits.

Tip 5: Discuss, discuss, discuss

Talk to your team and find out what their issues are. Rather than provide answers, invite group discussion so that everyone is bought in to your strategy.

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