Make Your Customer Buy From You More Often

Two similar stores have the same products for the same price, yet customers seem to buy again and again from only one. What makes customers go back to purchase more? The answer is good customer service. I came across this list of 5 keys to customer service to keep your customers happy on the RightToLead blog.

1. Be courteous. This is something that is largely dismissed nowadays. A little act of politeness will make customers feel more valued and important. Make them feel that you are sincere in extending a helping hand. A frown can drive people away, while a smile can draw more people in. Address your customer with “Ma’am” or “Sir”. Deal with one customer at a time to make him feel that he has your complete attention.

2. Be resourceful. Customers become angry when you tell them that you cannot grant their request because “It’s the company’s standard policy.” Customers do not want to hear such an excuse.

If you want more happy customers, think creatively. There are legal ways to go around your company’s ironclad policies. Make it a policy to extend service beyond the standard procedures in order to satisfy a customer’s needs.

3. Be prompt. Never put any of your customer’s requests on hold, especially when it is obviously urgent. Prompt and accurate service may lead to referrals. Hence, empower your staff members so they can make quick decisions and attend promptly to the needs of your customers.

4. Under promise and over deliver. Refrain from giving false promises. Never promise what you cannot deliver. It is still best to under promise and over deliver. This is the best way to wow your customers!

5. Extend your service. Even if it is not part of your standard service procedures, do something for the customer that shows genuine interest to their needs.

Create a desirable reputation for your company by providing quality customer service. After all happy customers are repeat customers.

Team Bonding: How Building Internal Relationships will Lead to Big Wins with Your Customers

We’d like to invite you to attend Team Bonding: How Building Internal Relationships will Lead to Big Wins with Your Customers webinar. Keith Ferrazzi, the CEO of Ferrazzi Green Light and keynote speaker at the 2008 NACCM Customers 1st event will be our featured speaker. Register to view the webinar on Wednesday, September 17th from 2:00 to 3:00 pm eastern standard time.

Register for this web seminar here: https://www1.gotomeeting.com/register/251030954
Please mention priority code: G1M2100W1Blog

About the presentation:
This presentation will be in a special format: live chat. This web seminar will be shared in a unique “interview/live chat” format. As you register for the seminar, you will be prompted a line where you can pose your question about internal relationships to Keith. Those questions will be address to Keith over the phone live as he shared his views. We will get to as many questions as possible in the allotted time and attendees will be encouraged to ask their own questions during the seminar.

Customer-focused executives are hard at work trying to create new initiatives that deepen their company’s relationships with their customers. In these trying times, customer strategists are in a loyalty budding war in hopes that their customers continue to spend with them. Building an enterprise-wide customer experience that evokes an emotional and consistent message with the customer is more challenging than ever before. Those companies that do have incredible customer experiences, what’s the secret to their success?

In this session, relationship guru and internationally best-selling author, Keith Ferrazzi, will examine where the foundation of building relationships with your customers should start- internally. Ferrazzi will discuss his expertise on how to align internal teams and will share how getting connected with your colleagues will lead to profits and engagement with your external customer relationships.

A group’s success fundamentally depends upon how its individual members work together. Individuals work more effectively and enjoy their work more when they have genuine personal relationships with their colleagues.

The core message with starting relationships both internally and externally are the same. Those core strategies in relationship development will be revealed by Keith during his keynote session at NACCM.

About the speaker:
Keith Ferrazzi
CEO
Ferrazzi Green Light

Keith Ferrazzi is one of the rare individuals who discovered the essential formula for making his way to the top -- a powerful and balanced combination of marketing acumen and networking savvy. Both Forbes and Inc. magazines have designated him one of the world's most "connected" individuals.

As Founder and CEO of Ferrazzi Greenlight, he provides market leaders with advanced strategic consulting and training services to increase company sales and enhance personal careers. Ferrazzi Greenlight strategically leverages the insight of its executives, whose careers span the highest echelons of corporate America, along with principles from Ferrazzi's best-selling book, Never Eat Alone. Never Eat Alone has been recognized as one of the best business books of 2005, 2006, and 2007 (three year’s in a row since its publication in 2005).

What you will learn:
- Building relationships internally for group success sparks a culture of generosity and accountability that helps participants do the following:
- Help each other succeed in both professional and personal pursuits,
- Have more fun in the workplace
- Facilitate direct, honest communication for resolving conflict, and
contribute to the firm’s success by proactively building relationships with
people inside and outside the organization,
- And more that will lead to increasing employee retention and shareholder
value.

This is a NACCM: Customers 1st sponsored webinar. NACCM: Customers 1st will be November 16th through the 19th in Anaheim, California.

Register for this web seminar here: https://www1.gotomeeting.com/register/251030954
Please mention priority code: G1M2100W1Blog

Speaker Profile: Frank Capek

With the North American Conference On Customer Service approaching, we would like to introduce you to the speakers we will have at our event. This year, NACCM will take place from November 16 – 19, 2008 in Anaheim, California at the Disneyland Hotel. Today, we’d like to introduce you to Frank Capek. Frank Capek is the Senior Vice President nGenera’s, nGen Customer Business division.

To fulfil his role at nGenera, Capek pulls insight from his 25 plus years of experience working with over 50 major corporations in a variety of industries. Some of the assets that he provides, as listed on his blog, are helping organizations: understand how their customers think, feel, and act; designing products, services, processes, and technology that enable more effective customer experiences; and aligning leadership, employee experiences, and organizational behaviour to deliver.

To hear more of Frank Capek’s thoughts check out his blog here. We invite you to come see Frank Capek at NACCM November 16-19, 2008 in Anaheim California at the Disneyland Hotel. Be sure to look for another speaker’s profile next week.

Banks Still Need a Lot of Work in Customer Service

Aaron Baar mentions in this latest post on Marketing Daily that although retail banks have spent a lot of time and energy investing in the look of its retail locations, it is still lacking when it comes to customer service according to new research from J.D. Power and Associates.

In some examples where mystery shoppers visited different branches, many representatives lacked basic customer service skills like smiling, shaking hands, and cleanliness. According to the survey, half of 475 customer service respresentatives shopped did not smile when greeting a prospective customer and 1/3 of those reps did not shake hands.

Rockwell Clancy, executive director of financial services at J.D. Power mentions:

"Overlooking these simple gestures conveys a lack of respect for the customer or disinterest in their business, and can destroy the foundation of a relationship before it's even started. Where is the retail in retail banking?"

Are banks too focused on the appearance of its branches and neglecting the simple customer service essentials that improve the overall customer experience?

Make connections faster

In a recent blog post by NACCM keynote speaker Keith Ferrazzi, he gives four tips on how to make connections with people faster. He’s collected them from a few of the books he has been reading lately.

- Talk in color. When speaking with them, engage their imagination. Find some way to involved their senses in your conversation.
- Look people in the eye. He points out this is an old trick, but start by noticing the colors of actors eyes on TV. Then start doing this in real life too.
- Put something interesting on your business card. Make yourself stand out, a good place to do this is on your business card.
- Host a weekly “know how” series. Hosting a weekly series will begin to foster creativity and innovation throughout your organization. This will also help you stand out, because you are the person organizing the events.

We’re excited to have Keith Ferrazzi on one of our upcoming NACCM Customers 1^st web seminars. Check out his speaker profile here. Look for news next week on this web seminar session where Keith will be answering questions on building relationships from the audience. Do you have anything you’d like to ask Keith?

Erosion

This is posted on behalf of JoAnna Brandi. It is co-posted on the Customers 1^st Blog and JoAnna Brandi blogs.

As soon as the rain from Tropical Storm Fay passed yesterday I rushed down to the beach. I had been away for over two weeks and I missed my favorite spot. Breathing in the sea air renews me, so even when windy or cloudy, I take my walks at the beach.

And windy it was. I tucked my ipod deep in my pocket and put my sunglasses on to keep the sand out of my eyes. It’s my habit to walk against the wind on the walk out, so the walk back is a little easier.

It didn’t take long to notice that a lot of beach was gone. The storm had done some damage, and perhaps eighty feet or more of beach washed out to sea.

I drank in the fresh air after two days of being stuck indoors during the storm, at first all I was feeling was gratitude for being able to have nature so close to home.

But shortly I started thinking about a client. Their customer base in one sector of their business is eroding, and has been for a while. I know my training and my message is powerful, but I wondered. Would it begin to turn the tide?

When over time you cut cost by cutting service it begins eroding the trust your clients had. Growing by acquisition builds the customer base up again (just like the beach did over the past few months following terrible storms a few months prior to that.) But when scrupulous attention is not paid to the culture and how to deal with customers of the “former” company, over time, we see erosion.

The world is changing. The customer is changing. They have the power. When they start talking out loud and on the internet, the jig’s up.

All organizations need to take a closer look at what they are doing to stem erosion. If you didn’t have a good relationship with the customer when they left (because like everyone else, they’re cutting back a bit) you certainly won’t be able to win them back when the financial weather changes again. Marketing and advertising dollars don’t buy trust, they buy interest. You can’t buy trust, you have to earn and build it. What builds trust is consistently doing the things that make the employees and customers feel valued, special and important.

It happens easily. Even to me. We all tend to take our customers for granted. Erosion. It’s a sign.

Time to build up the dunes.

If you’d like to see more of Joanna Brandi’s blogs, visit JoAnna Brandi’s Blogs. You can also find out more by visiting her Customer Care Coach website. Joanna Brandi will be a keynote speaker at this year’s North American Conference on Customer Management, and has already been profiled on our Customer 1^st blog. Stay tuned for her posts on the Customers 1^st blog!

Gaining Loyalty Through Customer Service in an Uncertain Economy

Even through troubling times and economies, the strength of the customer relationship that a company builds should endure. Researching the net, I came across this great list of 10 customer service tips posted by Joe Brown, general manager of EMEA at RightNow Technologies, on MYCUSTOMER.com.

1. Don’t discontinue an existing customer initiative in an uncertain economy — if necessary, reduce the scope of (or postpone pending improvements to) the initiative until the economy improves.
2. Don’t wait for customer relationships to weaken or break — you can’t afford the loss of revenue or of goodwill in an uncertain economy, so proactively take steps to manage those relationships well.
3. Customers make purchase decisions more deliberately in an uncertain economy, so give them the service and the information they need to choose your company over the competition.
4. Customers take longer to make purchase decisions when times are tough, so bridge the gap with a sequence of individually customised communications that provide concrete information on the specific product features and benefits that fulfil their needs.
5. Spend your budget wisely, by shifting dollars to individualised service initiatives and communications targeted to those customers who are most valuable or who are most likely to grow in value.
6. Clearly communicate value in each customer message— empathetically explaining how and why your product is aligned with the customer’s concerns in a trying economic environment.
7. Don’t overwhelm customers with surveys, and when a customer does respond, let them know that their feedback has been received—and, most importantly, that it is sincerely appreciated.
8. Invest in innovation—fuelled in part by customer listening—during challenging economic times, because it can pay handsome dividends.
9. The memories of customers will extend well beyond the end of an uncertain economy — they won’t forget (or forgive) opportunistic actions or other violations of trust, but they will remember excellent customer service.
10. Focus upon cost savings rather than revenue generation when implementing a customer initiative — and then use those savings to fund future enhancements.

Retaining customer loyalty through turbulent times really shows the worth of your company. Follow these steps listed by Joe Brown to ensure that loyalty is not lost no matter how tough times might get.

Speaker Profile: Mark Morgan

With the North American Conference On Customer Service approaching, we would like to introduce you to the speakers we will have at our event. This year, NACCM will take place from November 16 – 19, 2008 in Anaheim, California at the Disneyland Hotel. Today, we’d like to introduce you to Mark Morgan. Mark Morgan is the Chief Executive Advisor for StratEx Advisors.

As the founder of StratEx Advisors, he pulls his insight from over 30 years experience in “engineering, management, project management, facilitation, consulting and leadership”.

The latest organizations that have benefitted from his expertise include IPSolutions, IBM and Stanford University. Mark Morgan is also the author of Executing Your Strategy: How to Break It Down and Get It Done, and Get It Done!: A Blueprint for Business Execution. A book review posted on this blog regarding Executing Your Strategy: How to Break It Down and Get It Done, had this to say:

Morgan, Malek and Levitt put forth a systematic approach for companies to decide "who they are, where they want to go and how to get there" and illustrate the means to implement those ideas. They also cover the key elements linking vision, strategy and operations--and how to connect them together into a coherent operating model for a company.

We invite you to come see Mark Morgan at NACCM as he presents on Wednesday, November 19th, Turning great ideas into great results: Cracking the code on getting stuff done. Be sure to look for another speaker’s profile next week.

GREAT Recovery

This is posted on behalf of JoAnna Brandi. It is co-posted on the Customers 1^st Blog and JoAnna Brandi blogs.

I got a call today from Lori Pappasino at Lord & Taylors. Was she upset!

She read the blog entry about my experience there and I’ve got to say took it real personally. She apologized. She listened. She apologized again. She felt badly and I could feel it. She told me about her efforts at L&T to create positive customer experiences. She expressed regret that they had failed Mom and I.

I explained (how could I not) that perhaps if this had been another store, perhaps if this had been one of the discount chains, or even one of the other department stores, that I wouldn’t have felt nearly so bad. But after all this was Lord & Taylors – the “special” store of my youth. The Lord & Taylors of special dresses and first suits and ladies’ lunches – I had a higher expectation. And so the gap appeared to be so huge because this venerable old institution owed me (and Mom) more. It compounded my insult and made it feel even worse. After all, it’s all about the feelings.

She got it.

In fact – she got it all. She understood my point of view as a customer and as a professional in her field. She even went through (she didn’t know this) most all the steps I teach to deal with and upset or angry customer. She listened, she let me vent, she empathized ( so well, I think I want to take her to lunch) she restated the problem to make sure she really understood, she told me what she was going to do to make sure it would never happen to another customer, she offered a letter of apology to my mother with a small “atonement” (my word, not hers) she thanked me for my business and told me how valuable I was and that she wanted to earn our trust once again.

She really got it. Congratulations Lori – you “Wowed” me with your recovery skills.

She explained how the whole company is now going through retraining in customer service behaviors. I’ll bet I make it to the “Here’s how not to do it” section of that training. Good. Stories are memorable.

They are asking the question in their company, “What are we going to do differently?” I couldn’t help myself, I offered a few suggestions. It’s a great question and one that everyone should be asking!

One thing is for sure – if she teaches everyone in the company what she knows about “recovery” skills, they’ll be well trained.

In case you want a little poster for your wall to remind you of those steps – we’ve posted it here LINK for you or anyone you think might need it. Enjoy. Practice. Prosper.

If you’d like to see more of Joanna Brandi’s blogs, visit JoAnna Brandi’s Blogs. You can also find out more by visiting her Customer Care Coach website. Joanna Brandi will be a keynote speaker at this year’s North American Conference on Customer Management, and has already been profiled on our Customer 1^st blog. Stay tuned for her posts on the Customers 1^st blog!

Customer Experience and Your Organization

The customer experience remains an important component of how consumers view your brand and it could make your break your business. This post on BusinessCast discusses a recent Forrester study which highlights that many firms are beginning to create positions like Chief Customer Officer and SVP of Customer Experience to oversee the overall customer experience.

Andrew posts the five main insights from executives that were interviewed by Forrester that currently have these positions. Here they are:

1. Make sure that you’ve got the right environment;
2. Prepare to take on a broad change agenda;
3. Establish a strong operating structure;
4. Kick off high-priority activities; and
5. Look ahead to the future.

What are some ways that your company ensures that customers are having strong positive experiences? Make sure to download the full Forrester report here.

Customer service winners

I recently came across BusinessWeek’s Customer Service Standouts slideshow. I took some time to look through the top ten to find out what made them so special when it came to their customer service. An overlying theme was treating your employees with respect. If employees love who they’re working for, love the products they’re selling, and are educated on them, odds are your customer service will be great. Here’s Business Week’s top 10 and why they made the list.

1. USAA – With their service team of 12,400 receiving 250,000 hours of reinforcement training a year to service military personnel with they know their product.

2. LL Bean – In the 2007 holiday season, they took time to store up their inventory, leaving less customers calling the call center to complain about items being in stock, even with the extra goods they had left over.

3. Fairmont Hotels & Resorts – All employees get the luxury service when they start the job so they know what it’s suppose to be like for the customers.

4. Lexus – They set up an online chatroom to converse with customers online who are thinking about buying Lexus vehicles.

5. Trader Joe’s – They make an effort to pay their employees the average income in their community, and pride themselves on customer interaction in the store.

6. Starbucks – January started, and they made customer service their number one priority, making changes to their current rocky business.

7. Jet Blue – Their new terminal at JFK Airport in New York City will bring more security outlets, as well as more eticket kiosks. They’ve also added a Customer’s Bill of Rights.

8. Edward Jones – In 2007, they implemented a system to recognize branch managers who excelled at customer service.

9. Lands End – In Sears stores, their current owner, they’ve added in-store monogramming, and also computer kiosks so in store customers can browse online.

10. Ace Hardware – The employees focus on being knowledgeable about their tools. This year, they’re having every employee carry around a skill matrix card, so if they’re not the expert on certain tools, they can quickly connect customers with the right person.

Please Inform Your Face

This is posted on behalf of JoAnna Brandi. It is co-posted on the Customers 1^st Blog and JoAnna Brandi blogs.

I’ve just left the Estee Lauder counter in Lord & Taylor’s. I’m shaking my head.

Lauder is having one of their special offers – buy $39.50 worth of product and get a free gift. My Mom uses their products and like most people loves the free gift. This time (very clever) you get to customize the gift. You get to pick from two color palettes (warm or cool) and a choice of daytime or nighttime creams.

We walked over to the relatively small counter where there three (count them – three) sales people. Not one of them noticed us nosing around. I had to ask “Are you having a special offer today?”

“Yes.”

“Uh – can you tell us a little about it?”

She gave us a brief description, nothing exciting at all in her voice, and void of some important details. My Mom, recovering from a broken hip, and leaning on a cane said great – I need some powder. The young later brought out the powder and stated that the powder cost $29.50.

“Okay,”

A moment of silence and then I got it – it was probably not enough to qualify for the gift. So I needed to move the conversation along to the next level I guessed. “And what do we need to spend to get a gift?”

$39.50 More silence and one of those glances that suggested that perhaps we were interrupting something very important that she needed to do. It was momentary, but my body picked it up.

Now my Mom picked up the ball. She looked at me and said, “Need anything?”

“I really could use a lipstick.”

“Okay.” And then, nothing.

“Where ARE your lipsticks?” I asked, really wanting to bolt out of the store screaming.

“Over there.”

And so I climbed over a cart that was blocking the way, and then moved it out of the way so my Mom might make her way around the road block too.

I quickly picked a lipstick. Now it’s time for Mom to pick the components of her gift – the young lady asked my not-hearing-too-well Mom. “Do you want warm or cool colors?” Not knowing what she was getting into, or what the young lady meant she picked one. When I brought to her attention after seeing the colors that she wasn’t going to like the beige lipstick we asked the young lady to switch it. What resulted was a deep sigh and look of distain.

Had I been there alone, it would have been the moment of truth, where I either told the truth about what I was seeing or left the store, but I stayed for the rest of the transaction.

To my utter amazement, after we paid, the woman looks up and says in a somewhat convincing voice, “Thank you so very much. I really appreciate your business, thanks for coming in today.” The amazing part – she said it all while maintaining a scowl on her face. It made me feel quite ill, it was that strange.

Next time you express appreciation – please remember to inform your face.

If you want to learn more about inspiring the kind of culture that would NEVER (I repeat NEVER) produce this kind of behavior join the experts at this year’s North American Conference on Customer Management where we’ll be teaching you how to make the customer really FEEL like #1.

If you’d like to see more of Joanna Brandi’s blogs, visit JoAnna Brandi’s Blogs. You can also find out more by visiting her Customer Care Coach website. Joanna Brandi will be a keynote speaker at this year’s North American Conference on Customer Management, and has already been profiled on our Customer 1^st blog. Stay tuned for her posts on the Customers 1^st blog!

Speaker Profile: Kevin Carroll

With the North American Conference On Customer Service approaching, we would like to introduce you to the speakers we will have at our event. This year, NACCM will take place from November 16 – 19, 2008 in Anaheim, California at the Disneyland Hotel. Today, we’d like to introduce you to Kevin Carroll. Kevin Carroll, as described by many is an “author, speaker, and agent for social change.” In addition he is the founder of Katalyst Consultancy.

His popular book Rules of the Red Rubber Ball, has garnered him some of his acclaim. This Newsweek article proclaimed the book as a “self-published gem is an adult's version of Dr. Seuss's "Oh, the Places You'll Go!"--a pocket-size guide to finding your way in life.” BusinessWeek also hailed him as one of the “Champions In Innovation” in 2006. On a more personal level this blog post describes him as having the ability to "suck the air out of the largest room”.

Some of the companies that have benefited from his expertise include The National Hockey League, Nike, ESPN, Starbucks, The Walt Disney Company, Mattel, Hasbro, Paramount Television, Procter & Gamble, The Discovery Channel, Capital One, and HSBC Bank.

As previously mentioned Kevin Carroll is author of Rules of the Red Rubber Ball: Find and Sustain Your Life's Work, What's Your Red Rubber Ball?!, and The Red Rubber Ball at Work: Elevate Your Game Through the Hidden Power of Play. He also maintains a blog for Katalyst Consultancy. For a preview of Mr. Carroll enjoy the video below. We invite you to come see Kevin Carroll at NACCM as he presents on Monday, November 17th, Rediscovering Play: Bringing fun and passion to your work. . . and life. Be sure to look for another speaker’s profile next week.

Becoming more customer centric

In a recent blog post at Customer Think, William Brand takes a look at how to become a more customer centric company. He’s set out four steps that will help companies begin to become customer centric.

1. Evaluate – Look to define and understand what you want to be changed to become a more customer-based company. Know why you want these things changed and what the forces are those are pushing you to become a more customer centric company.

2. Design – You need to plan out the steps necessary to develop a vision. Take what you have now, and what you wish to have, then fill in the gaps in between and determine your strategy from there.

3. Activate – Find quick success, give support and reinforce your commitment to becoming a customer centric organization and finally align all organizational systems.

4. Measure – Take the time to measure what you’ve done and determine if you are a customer centric organization. To do this, measure and track the effectiveness and efficiency of your new customer centric model. Also, reach out to customers and find out if their viewpoints have changed.

The effects of social media on customer retention

At the 1 to 1 blog, Ginger Conlin took time to explain her most recent encounter with customer service and companies monitoring the internet. Even though it’s hard to measure social media and see the monetary effects of these tools immediately, Conlin suggests that it’s important to invest in them anyway for the long term revenue growth by keeping your current customers. Other benefits of investing in customer service on the internet are feedback gathering, responding to concerns, the ability to share content, and the ability to increase customer retention. We’ve touched on reaching out to your customers through the interent with a recent post about Comcast, and Conlin shared her experience with Citibank. Have you had a personal experience with this?

Customer Experience Management

Bruce Temkin asks in this blog post, “What the Heck is Customer Experience?” He goes on to provide three key points that he feels is part of Customer Experience Management:

- Discipline. CEM is not about creating slogans like “this is the year of the customer.” It needs to be a set of ongoing activities like a well-established voice of the customer program.

- Increasing loyalty. CEM is not about an altruistic belief that customers should be treated better. It needs to be linked to more profitable (or strategically improved) long-term behaviors of customers.

- Customers’ needs and expectations. CEM is not about technology deployments or internal milestones. It needs to be calibrated from the perspective of target customers.

It is important to reflect on CEM, and what it means to your organization. After reviewing his list is there anything that you would add or change?

I’m So Excited

This is posted on behalf of JoAnna Brandi. It is co-posted on the Customers 1^st Blog and JoAnna Brandi blogs.

Ever had a song playing in your head? “I’m so excited; I think I like it….” Okay, I know, I’m dating myself. But I have to admit the sound of that song has been in my head since I got off the phone with Amanda Powers who is the conference director for this year’s North American Conference on Customer Management.

She spent an hour with me on the phone walking me through the agenda – they’ve made major changes – based on feedback from attendees, of course, and the conference – the 6^th annual – looks like it could be the best ever. They’ve expanded on things people wanted more of and cut back on things people thought there was too much of, and it’s shaping up really nicely. It’s finally in a new location – Anaheim California.

I’m not only excited because the conference looks good. I’m excited because I’m the chairperson and get an opportunity to be involved at a whole new level. I don’t know why they picked me, but I am sure glad they did. I’m doing a workshop AND getting the honor of introducing the keynoters. I can’t wait until November to get involved, so I’m starting this week to discover more about the topics, the speakers, and Disneyland (where we are going to get a change to “swarm” the magic kingdom.)

Yeah, I like it. I can’t wait to meet Kevin Carroll the Author of Rules of The Red Rubber Ball whose keynote is titled “Rediscovering Play: Bringing Fun and Passion to Your Work and Your Life. “

Kevin – I am so ready.

You can expect that over the next few months I’ll be sharpening my blogging skills (it’s about time isn’t it?) and spreading the excitement of the conference every chance I get. And you can be sure that I’ll be first on line to hear the Rob Maruster, the Senior VP of JetBlue Airways speak on “Bring Humanity Back to Air Travel.” Yoo-hoo Rob, can we talk?

Check it out http://www.iirusa.com/naccm/event-home.xml

If you’d like to see more of Joanna Brandi’s blogs, visit JoAnna Brandi’s Blogs. You can also find out more by visiting her Customer Care Coach website. Joanna Brandi will be a keynote speaker at this year’s North American Conference on Customer Management, and has already been profiled on our Customer 1^st blog. Stay tuned for her posts on the Customers 1^st blog!

Speaker Profile: Keith Ferrazzi

With the North American Conference On Customer Service approaching, we would like to introduce you to the speakers we will have at our event. This year, NACCM will take place from November 16 – 19, 2008 in Anaheim, California at the Disneyland Hotel. Today, we’d like to introduce you to Keith Ferrazzi. Keith Ferrazzi is currently the CEO of Ferrazzi Greenlight, and author of “Never Eat Alone: And other Secrets to Success, One Relationship at a Time”.

Keith Ferrazzi received his bachelors degree from Yale, and his MBA from Harvard. Since then he has been given many accolades for his formula on success through relationships. Forbes and Inc. magazines have both nominated him as one of the worlds most “connected” people. One of his achievements include, being the youngest chief marketing officer in the Fortune 500, which led to a Stanford Business School case study regarding his success.

Recently Keith Ferrazzi was interviewed by this blog. When asked about his popular presentation, he stated that “Relationship for revenue growth he mentioned that “It’s the power of relationships that can help you grow your company’s success – whether by connecting with new markets, developing new products, or increasing productivity. Having great products isn’t enough anymore on its own. You also need the ability to bring unique value to the relationships you have with your clients, beyond the business transaction.”

As previously mentioned Keith Ferrazzi is author of “Never Eat Alone: And Other Secrets to Success, One Relationship at a Time”. He also maintains a blog that is a discussion forum regarding his philosophies. To learn more about him, visit his website, or his company website Ferrazzi Greenlight. For another preview on Mr. Ferrazzi enjoy the video below. Also stay tuned for an exclusive webinar by him coming in September. We invite you to come see Keith Ferrazzi at NACCM as he presents on Tuesday, November 18th, Relationships for Revenue Growth. Be sure to look for another speaker’s profile next week.

Importance of Retaining Customers During Recessions

In this article from Customer Think, Phil Dourado provides tips on how to keep customers when times are tough. When the economy is experiencing problems, it becomes imperative for organizations to retain their customer base and foster loyalty. Dourado mentions 6 main points on why this is so important that he has collected from a variety of sources.

1. Cutting service problems increases profit - "1% cut in customer service problems could generate an extra £16m in profits for a medium size company over five years."

2. Keep the ones you've got - "It can cost six times more to buy new customers than retain existing ones."

3. Service leaders are more resilient in a downturn

4. Your bills get paid

5. Reducing customer defections improves profits

6. What did we say in Number 5? Here it is again - Points 1, 2, 5 and this one are all about keeping the customers you have and not losing them. Also bear in mind that in an economic downturn it’s far easier to win market share from the competition, so becoming defensive-minded is not always a sensible strategy.

Is US Customer Service Really the Best?

Louise Marsland details on this latest post on BizCommunity.com that her overall experience of airline customer service was superb. She details that the world’s view of customer service in North America is that of disgust and rudeness, even though she did not encounter any of these feelings as she lists everything that customer agents did to comfort her when her flight was delayed over 18 hours.

Is the customer service experience really that different overseas? How does your company’s customer service in the US compare to customer service offered abroad?