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?

Customer Loyalty

A recent article at the blog Customers are Always pointed out the huge difference between a customers having loyalty cards and customers being loyal to stores. Just because a customer has a loyalty card doesn’t mean that they will continually be loyal to this store. To ensure that a customer does stay loyal to your store, you must give them customer service that they want to come back to your store for.

What do you think? Does great customer service automatically guarantee customer loyalty?

Plane Simple

We’d like to introduce you to our newest guest contributor, Joanna Brandi. She’ll be co-posting with the Customers 1^st blog. Here is her most recent post from her Customer Care Goddess blog.

I’m headed for the airport. Again. I can’t say I love travel, but like many, I make the best of it. On the trip home from Indiana last week I was stuck – literally – in the window seat between a very large (and angry) man next to me and the one in front of me who reclined himself into my lap. I guess when Delta put in those few extra rows (and took away leg room) they forgot to change the pitch of the reclining seat. Oh the joy of travel! I thought I might have a glass of wine to celebrate the success of the workshop I’d just delivered, but I was pinned in so tightly I couldn’t get my arm to the floor to reach my purse. Cranberry juice please!

The man next to me vibed negativity. My guess he was mad because he was stuck in the middle and spread his unhappiness whether he opened his mouth or not.

The flight attendant wasn’t too pleasant and that made it worse, but what came first?

When he called her “toots” I chose to close my eyes and visualize how beautiful the beach would be at sunrise the next day. Breathe deeply.

I didn’t realize until I got off the plane that despite my best efforts, I’d been holding my breath. Getting off the plane never felt so good.

When stuck in situations like that I do think people should make every effort to be as pleasant as possible. No one likes flying any more, why make it worse?

The plane ride home was on my mind when I wrote my tip yesterday – rather than “how to” give great service I offer tips on how to get great service. We all need to practice what we teach. Take a look at my Customer Care Tip here

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!

Online Customer Communities Tips

Web 2.0 is one of the latest trends in business and is changing the way companies, and consumers are interacting with one another. Rules that many thought set in stone have become unraveled and it is important for organizations to keep up with the changing times. It is especially important for organizations to understand the nature of online customer communities and how it affects the company and client relationship. This blog post from ZDNet highlights some of the best practices for online customer communities.

1. Put the needs of the community first
2. Community is mostly not a technology problem
3. Active community management
4. Measuring success with community requires new yardsticks
5. Consumer social networks, grassroots customer communities, and business-initiated customer communities are closely related yet very different creatures
6. Customer communities do work as a marketing channel, just not in the traditional way
7. The more that business is integrated, the better the community will work
8. Growth will come, but not until a community finds its identity
9. Mutual ownership and control of communities enables trust and involvement
10. Most communities are highly social entities, and the rules of social engagement apply
11. Going to the community, instead of making it come to you, is a risky but increasingly viable strategy
12. Connect the community with other CRM-related aspects of the organization

Are there any other points that you would highlight? Has your organization been implementing these tips?

Speaker Profile: JoAnna Brandi

With the North American Conference On Customer Service approaching, we would like to begin to introduce you to the speakers we will have this year 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 JoAnna Brandi. JoAnna Brandi is currently the CEO & Publisher for Customer Care Coach.

JoAnna Brandi started her career with CPM Media, where she was responsible for helping to create a multi-million dollar Direct Market Services profit center, building the first database, and on-line customer care system. After leaving CPM in 1990, she opened her own business which has successfully built on the principles that she had learned. Some of the main insights that JoAnna shares through a bi-weekly online magazine “Customer Care Tip”, which she authors, are on the topics of positive psychology in business.

She has written three books: “Winning at Customer Retention, 101 Ways to Keep 'em Happy, Keep 'em Loyal, and Keep 'em Coming Back”, “Building Customer Loyalty – 21 Essential Elements in ACTION”, and “54 Ways to Stay Positive in a Changing, Challenging and Sometimes Negative World”. In addition she was a contributing author to “Inc. Guide to Superior Customer Service”, and “Best Practices in Customer Service”.

To learn more about JoAnna Brandi visit her blog and read more of her musings. Meanwhile click on this link to see a video found her company website depicting her in action. We invite you to come see JoAnna Brandi at NACCM as she presents her workshop on Sunday, November 16th, The Positive Leader. Be sure to look for another speaker’s profile next week.

Are retailers listening to customers needs?

In a recent post at Customers Rock! Becky Carroll raises a question every shopper has had at one time or another. Why aren’t items for season carried during the season in which they are needed? Becky and her son had to drive around 50 miles trying to find a bathing suit. It’s July, with at least one more month of swimming season. One of the commenters couldn’t find spring jackets in last spring, as they were sold out in December.

Retailers are failing to see what their customers need and at what times they need it. Becky thinks it’s important that these stores find a balance between the needs of stocking items that can benefit both the retailer and the customer. Yes, it’s important to create an online community and keep the dialog going, but if customers come into your store and you don’t have the products they need, part of the relationship is lost. What do you think?

Social Media Revolutionizing Customer Service?

Recently we posted on our blog about customer service at Comcast. This week we decided to take a slightly different slant and discuss what some other companies are doing as well as find out if the next step in the evolution of customer services is being proactive instead of reactive by utilizing social media. In this NY Times article, and as previously mentioned on our blog, Comcast has created a new position in their company called “digital care manager”. This new role was taken over by Mr. Eliason, and has since expanded to a staff of seven expected to grow to ten. As Brian D. Solis, from FutureWorks a public relations firm, mentioned, Comcast is

“taking what used to be an inbound call center and turning it into an outbound form of customer relations”

When I checked another of the companies mentioned by the NY Times article, Southwest Air, I noticed that on their twitter page they have 2,088 followers. Apparently, they are also not only relying on people talking back to them, but also going out and actively seeking people who have twitterd about them. In fact this blog post recounts one individual’s account of how Southwest Air proactively responded to their twitter comments rather than simply relying on an inbound call center.

Whole Foods Market is going one step further and rewarding consumers who twitter about them by having a drawing where once a week one lucky individual will receive a $25 Whole Foods Market Card as announced in their company blog.

With more and more companies starting to use social media as not just a marketing tool, but as another step in the evolution of customer service it will be interesting to see how many other roles such as “digital care manager” will be created. Also, it will be interesting to see what percentage of companies migrate away from the use of call centers and begin instead to capitalize on the social media revolution.

Are your organizations taking these extra steps? Do you think that soon this will be the norm in customer service, and what the industry standard will become?

Two Customer Service Approaches Your Company Should Avoid

Whether you’re talking to a company’s representative on the phone or online, there are two quick ways to alienate a customer. Laura Bergells details these two approaches that your company’s reps should watch out for when they communicate with customers in her latest post on Internet Marketing in the Midwest.

Laura gives an example of two companies that she has had a long customer relationship with which she will soon break off. One company apologizes constantly in person, on the phone, and in “canned letters’. The apologies seem scripted, and thus can frustrate customers even more when their problems are not being solved.

The next example involves a company who apologizes for none of its faults, and makes the customer feel like an idiot. The representatives for Company B treated Laura with absolutely no respect, and made no effort to go out of there way to provide superior service. Not only was the rep rude, but they did hold Laura’s scheduled appointment.

These are two examples of customer service approaches that your company should never follow. As Laura mentions, customer service is a huge part of marketing, and frustrated bloggers can spread word fast all over social media. Businesses should empower its representatives to use social skills and reasoning to solve problems and communicate effectively with customers, instead of following a script or being unapologetic.

Twitter Acting as Complementary Customer Service

Last night, on World News Tonight with Charles Gipson, a story about Twitter aired. Read the news report here. Tracey Louise Wallace worked from home, and woke up Monday morning to no cable, internet or phone. After speaking with customer service representatives at Comcast, she was informed they’d fix her services Thursday. After the experience, she twittered. Comcast has a team that sorts through social media sites looking for complaints. Frank Eliason, leader of that team, found her complaint and began to track her down. After finding her Twitter page, work webpage, and business partner, he was able to contact Tracey directly. Her services were back up by 5:00 Monday evening.

Customer care is growing as we see the internet grow in old ways. It’s no longer enough to expect customers to sit for thirty minutes on hold before they speak with a customer care representative. Comcast is just one of the many companies monitoring what’s being said about them on the internet. Is your company doing this? How are you seeing this affect your customer service?

Speaker Profile: Joe Torre

With the North American Conference On Customer Service approaching, we would like to begin to introduce you to the speakers we will have this year at our event. This year, NACCM will take place from November 16 – 19, 2008 in Anaheim, California at the Disneyland Hotel. This week, we’d like to introduce you to Joe Torre. Joe Torre is currently the manager of the LA Dodgers, and is also one of the winningest coaches in baseball history.

Joe knows the importance of managing people. Torre began his baseball career in 1960 as an amateur free agent with the Boston Braves. His 1971 National League MVP award is overshadowed by the remarkable time he spent with the New York Yankees, going to twelve consecutive post seasons with them, winning his first championship in 1996. The team also won seven World Series and ten pennants during his time. Torre won the manager of the year award in 1998 for his outstanding season with the Yankees.

Torre has created the Safe at Home Foundation in 2002 with his wife, their goal being to educating to end the cycle of domestic violence and save lives. The foundation now focuses on educating children in school about domestic violence. The organization has ten funded programs; all called Margaret’s Place throughout New York City and Westchester County in New York State.

Joe has co-authored two books: Chasing My Dream: My Lifelong Journey to the World Series and Joe Torre’s Ground Rules for Winners: Twelve Keys to Managing Team Players.

Competing at the highest level is not about winning. It's about preparation, courage, understanding and nurturing your people, and heart. Winning is the result.

Joe Torre contributed this quote to an article he wrote for Business Week. He also insists that as a member of any competitive team, whether it be baseball or your customer service division, you must be ready to play at all times. We invite you to come see Joe Torre at NACCM as he presents his keynote speech on Tuesday, November 18^th, Ground rules for winners: Effectively managing teams, setbacks and success both in business and in life.

(Sources: Business Life, Business Week, LA Times, Safe at Home Foundation, and Sports Business News)

Give your customers confidence

In a blog post at Service Untitled, they discussed the importance of your customers feeling satisfied with their customer service representatives when on phone calls. Most often, customers feel they’re going to call the call center and the representative is not going to know what their problem is. Customers are more likely to have a pleasant experience if they feel that when on a phone call, the customer service representative knows their problem and can fix it.

So how do you give your customers confidence in your CSRs? The representatives should tell the customer calling that they can help them resolve the problem today. Letting a customer know that the representative is happy to be there and willing to help solve the problem makes all the difference in a satisfied customer at the end of a call.

Thank Your Customers

Do you thank your customers after every customer service call, or after any interaction? Today’s post on The Customer Service Helper discusses how although companies should be thanking customers after every interaction whether it be in person, on the phone, or online, it isn’t necessarily doing it. Also, being thankful for a customer’s business and interest in the company should be automatic. Agents, employees, and managers should not feel forced to utter the words “thank you”; it should be genuine.

Employees shouldn’t be taught to say thank you, it should come as second nature. Is your business thanking its customers?

Customer Loyalty Programs

This article in Advertising Age discusses the role of loyalty during economic downturns. Hilton Hotel’s senior VP of customer loyalty discussed how the members of the Hilton Honors program are responsible for the current success of Hilton and the chains ability to maintain business. While many view customer loyalty programs an important part of business during economic hardships, some corporations think about cultivating these loyal customers only during troubled times. This blog post raises the interesting point, that there is never a “best” time to encourage engagement in loyalty programs, instead it is important for companies to be constantly conscious of this need. The author of the post made this statement

Let’s consider a simple loyalty lifecycle: (1) Engage customers, (2) build loyalty, (3) reinforce loyal activities. Downturns are the worst time for (1) and (2) because there are fewer customers. It’s the time to really hone in on (3). So if you just start thinking about loyalty during a downturn, it’s too late.

What is your view on customer loyalty programs? Do you think that corporations have not been responsible enough in terms of cultivating consumer loyalty when they don’t have a pressing need for it?

Customer Service and Social Media

Researching the web I came across a list of Five reasons customer service is better on social media posted by David Griner on The Social Path. Here’s a quick recap of these reasons:

1. Because, for the first time ever, you can stop fires before they start. Companies have long been investing a lot of money in PR firms to investigate buzz around their products and/or services. Now, buzz can be instantly tracked on the web through forums, blogs, and other social sites.
2. It's easy. David mentions Google Alerts, which is extremely easy to use. Google Reader and other readers of this sort can easily be customized to bring you up-to-date information on your favorite blogs.
3. It's flattering. It feels good to have a company write or express opinions on your product. Even if there is negative feedback, just respond politely and you’ll be surprised at the reaction you’ll get.
4. It's a better use of your money than PR or advertising. While you shouldn’t altogether eliminate PR and advertising on the web, social media can replace many of those advertising dollars.
5. A little goes a long way. Instead of the traditional one-on-one outreach, responding to a blog post or forum thread for example can touch many people who view it.

Has your business adopted new methods in its customer service approach to adapt to the changing demographic?

LL Bean Gives Customers a Voice

According to this article at Market Watch, LL Bean has given customers a way to rate their products and write their opinions thanks to Bazaar Voice. The NRF Foundation/American Express Customer Service Survey rated LL Bean #1 for customer service recently, and the company has shown that they are loyal to their customers. To make customers aware of this feature, they feature a section on their front page encouraging customers to share their opinions. This feature has been available since April 2008, and LL Bean has plans in the future to send emails out to customers who have purchased products to they can remind customers to write a review for the website. They also plan to begin including reviews in their catalogs.

The system is working; as LL Bean saw their loyal customers write over 13,000 reviews in five days after an email was sent out. Their eager, loyal customers are ready to give opinions on their products. Bazaar Voice will continue to help LL Bean use these customer reviews in order to capitalize the information derived from the user generated content.

Regaining Customer’s Trust

What does it take for a consumer to regain trust in a business even after the worst has happened? The answer is exceptional customer service. In the service industry, the way you treat your customers are crucial. Researching the web, I came across this post on The Customer Service Helper which lists 7 things you must do to restore customer confidence after things go wrong. Here’s a recap:

1. Courtesy. Whether on the phone or in person, politeness goes a long way. Make sure that all customer service representatives interact with customers with the utmost respect so that customers will experience more satisfaction.
2. Apology. After a bad experience or service failure for example, always apologize to the customer. Apologizing conveys politeness and empathy which will restore customer confidence.
3. Justification. Provide an explanation of why things went wrong. Even when problems are solved, most customers want to know why the problem existed in the first place. This process helps re-establish trust.
4. Resolution. Resolve the customer’s issue. When problems aren’t fixed, customers are left hanging, and so they begin to lose trust in the organization.
5. Immediateness. The time it takes to resolve the problem also impacts customer loyalty. Improve on speedy responses and recoveries, and you’ll see an increase in customer satisfaction.
6. Compensation. After a bad experience or service failure, giving discounts, refunds, free merchandise, and coupons is a good way to restore the balance in customer experience.
7. Surprise & Delight. Go beyond the problem resolution and provide personalized service. Customers will always remember a good customer service experience.

Following these 7 golden rules and you will surely see an increase in customer satisfaction, loyalty, and confidence!

Thou Shall Listen to Thy Customer

One of the best ways to improve customer service as a whole is to listen to what stories customers are telling about your company, whether it be good or bad. Becky Carroll reminds us in this post on Customers Rock! that a satisfied customer will recommend a company’s product or service to 3 people, while an unhappy customer will tell 3000 people (clearly exaggerating, but you get the drift). Customer reviews are crucial to the survival of businesses. When was the last time you checked out forums, blogs, discussion boards, and other social media to see what customers are saying about your company? We’ve discussed in a previous post how the use of the social media site Twitter could be used to make customer service proactive instead of reactive, but I’d like to see other examples of how companies have improved their services by scouring the web for consumer insights, complaints, and recommendations.