Verizon's Online Community Forums

In a press release issued today, Verizon said that its new online community forums have proven to be a great place for customers to connect about service issues and even to reach the customer service department. According to the release, one of the growing base of super users is Justin McMurry of Keller, Texas, who describes his involvement as growing from a natural interest in Verizon's FiOS TV and FiOS Internet services. Formerly a technical support expert for many years at a major technology company, McMurry said he enjoys solving problems and answering questions for others who visit the Community Forums in search of real-time feedback from fellow customers.

Are online forums a passing fad or here to stay?

Waiting on hold

Any customer knows what it's like to call a company just to be routed through directory after directory. VoIP-News recently published a list of ways to get around waiting for a customer service representative.

So what are the right characters to push:

10. Press zero. Pressing zero will often result in a direct route to a live person. Continue pressing zero until you're put through. You may need to try combinations such as "0#," "#0," "0*" or "*0."
11. Memorize prompts. If you're unfortunate enough to have call about the same issue on a regular basis, memorize the prompts that work for you.
12. Press the pound key. Skip to the next message or just confuse the system by pressing this character.
13. Press the star key. Again, the star key can open up system tricks or simply make the system give up on you.
14. Press everything. By pressing multiple numbers, you can trick systems into thinking you're on a rotary phone — or that you're crazy. Either way, you're in.
15. Go through the phone prompts. Sometimes it pays to work with the system.
16. Press any digit repeatedly. You may land in the wrong department, but you'll end up at beginning of line when you're transferred.

For the complete list, read the article here.

Twittering Your Customer Service Woes

According to NYTimes.com, Salesforce.com, the Web-based customer relationship management service that says it has more than a million subscribers, has legitimized the tweet as a cry for help by incorporating Twitter into its system. Now, when customers gripe on Twitter, Salesforce can automatically log a support request, and then post a human response back onto Twitter. Zappos, and Comcast are just a few of the companies using Twitter for customer service. Do you think more companies will follow suit? We'd like to hear your thoughts.

Animal shelter promotes better customer service

In Billings, Montana, the animal shelter is looking to create better service that will both help its customers and the pets they take care of. The city of Billings handed over the animal shelter to a private organization which will focus on customer service in order to save lives of animals. They'll be open longer hours and more days in order to allow more people to come in to adopt the pets. They'll also focus on recruiting volunteers and promoting foster programs with animal rescue groups. This case of customer service not only helps out the animal shelter's customers, but also serves in providing the pets with a better life.

Source: Billings Gazette

Balancing Customer Service and Satisfaction

Harvard Business Publishing recently ran a post on customer service and the balancing act that corporations must do to earn both customer satisfaction and customer loyalty. According to the post, managers often view service efficiency and customer satisfaction as incompatible goals. But they don't have to be. By maintaining customer service during a slowdown, companies with a strong core of loyal customers position themselves for growth and gain a competitive edge. What do you think is the key to balancing these two customer service goals?

Be sure to check out the rest of the post here.

Win your customer loyalty the old fashioned way

Over at Customer Think, Kevin Stirtz recently looked at two simple ways you can continue to keep your customers loyal to you: know what they want, and know what you are best at. It's vital that you keep communication roads open, and that it is easy for both your customers and employees to give you feedback. If you make a goal to listen to their feedback and begin to use it to improve their expreience, customers will keep coming back to you.

What do you do to encourage feedback from both your employees and customers?

How To Not Fail At Customer Service (Kudos to Canon)

Brad Moon, at Wired's GeekDad discusses in his blog post how companies can excel at customer service. Moon uses a recent transaction with Canon's customer service as an example of stellar customer service. Moon writes, ... the company identified an issue with its products and it's standing behind them, taking the responsibility for ensuring customers aren't left holding the bag. Sage advice for any customer service executive or representative. Lead by example, and as Moon says, retain customers--perhaps one of them will write a successful blog touting your product!

Too much customer service?

I came across this article at MSNBC, which asks the question "Can there be a thing such as too much customer service?". Some of the responses, which were collected from Twitter, included:

Katie_Traut: Yes, I think so. Take Martin+Osa. I love their clothes, but dread going in b/c the salespeople all harass you and stalk you.

apfriedman: yeah ... my dealership insists on calling my cell & sending an email survey every time I get my oil changed.

What do you think? Can there be a point when there is too much customer service?

Customer Service Overkill

Eve Tahmincioglu of yourbiz.msnbc.com, recently did a small survey via Twitter about customer service that's gone overboard. In her piece, Customer Service Overkill Can Kill You, she asks, "Can there be too much customer service?/is too much attention a miss?" She received a varied response from her Twitter friends, including a few about stores or salesmen that shopper's avoid. We enourage you to check out Ms. Tahmincioglu's piece and see if you agree with her thoughts on customer service? What do you think--can customer service go overboard?

Invest in your employees

The 1to1 Blog recently wrote an article that once again placed customer service on the shoulders of the employees. When a company invests and trains in their employees, the customer experience is ultimately a better one. A great example is this one from PetSmart:

Molloy explained that employees are trained, for example, to move dog owners shopping for dog food "up the aisle" from grocery brands to mid-priced "bridge" brands to premiums brands. Since pet food accounts for the bulk of PetSmart's revenue, having engaged employees who are comfortable with and trained to move customers along the value chain can make a significant impact on the bottom line.

How do you create loyalty?

The Sacramento Bee recently wrote an article on how companies should be continuing to create great customer service. However, with dwindling customers, how are they going to do this? They're also facing fewer working staff to give the customers the service they truly deserve. The news article collects thoughts from store owners and customers from around the country.

How are you continuing to give your customers the great service they deserve, even though you may be a little short handed?

Best and Worst Small Business Customer Service Rankings

Angie's List recently compiled a listing of the best and worst customer service small businesses. As reported in WSJ.com, based on a survey of its more than 750,000 members by Angie's List these members attached grades to companies in more than 425 service categories, judging the companies based on overall experience, price, quality, responsiveness and punctuality. The best small business with customer service is the piano and the worst are bridal shops. Interesting finds. Check out the entire list here and let us know your thoughts.

Why Customer Communities Work

The 1to1 Blog welcomes guest blogger, Natalie Petouhoff, Ph.D. do discuss why customer communities work and how to make them work for your company. Here are a few snippets that we saw of interest to our community:

Customer service communities are being deployed differently than most technology applications. How?

1. The focus is on the customer
2. Executives are talking directly to the customers
3. The focus is more on strategy and management (people part of business) than technology
4. The customer experienced is mapped before designing and deploying the community
5. Voice of the customer is honest, transparent, and direct

Dr. Petouhoff discusses other ways in which customer service communities are being deployed, check them out on her original post here.

Improve your customer service right away

Over at the Customers Think blog, they address how you can start improving your customer service right away in a inexpensive, and relatively fast, manner. Recognize your employees for their great customer service you observe. When you see them do something outstanding, reward them for it. Positive feedback is a great way to encourage your employees, and as a result have happier customers. For more tips on improving your customer service right now, read the post here.

Sitel: The Call Center People

In the Star Gazette of the Buffalo, New York area, they share that Sitel is hiring more customer service representatives to man customer service calls. This company provides the customer service call centers for many of the Fortune 500 companies, and fields an average of about 99% incoming calls. Each employee answers 25-30 calls a day.

Sitel site director Jeffrey Mortlock said
"It's a hard job. Ninety-five percent of the people calling in have a problem or they are upset about something. We have to teach employees how to solve people's problems, and that's what our goal is."

For more, read the article here.

Customer service and customer experience

Recently at Retail Customer Experience Magazine, the address the issue of customer experience versus customer service, and how the two should not be confused. Bruce Temkin, a Forrester blogger, said, "For most companies, customer service deals with some key 'moments of truth' for customers," he writes. "So that function is an important participant in most efforts to improve customer experience. But firms can’t just focus on customer service interactions or offload responsibility for customer experience to the customer service organization." They also provided the diagram to the right.

How do you keep the two separated for your customers?

5 Recession-Busting Customer Service Strategies

Christopher Musico of DestinationCRM.com, reports that the one thing that happens in a downturn is that everyone is focused on keeping customers," explains Natalie Petouhoff, senior analyst at Forrester and co-author of the report "The Economic Necessity of Customer Service." "Don't you spend on advertising? Of course you do, and it costs money -- but it has value if it's done well. The same goes for investment in customer service."

Petouhoff's 5 Recession Busters:

make self-service work across all channels;
be proactive about chat;
invest in online social-networking communities;
explore unified communications (UC); and
empower sales agents with co-browsing tools.

What do you think? Could you add a few more to the list?

Customer service and your stock value

According to a new article at Business Week, researchers at the Michigan Ross School of Business and Vanderbilt University’s Owen Graduate School of Management, customer service has a direct impact on the investors. The study comparing customer service and stock performance showed that as customer satisfaction scores rose over time, stocks outperformed the market.

When a company’s customer satisfaction score has improved over the prior year’s results and is above the national average (currently 75.7), studies show its shares have a good chance of outperforming the broad stock market in the long run.

Wachovia ranked first for customer service

Its not often that a large corporation, so poorly managed receives awards for customer service--perhaps something was right after all. Wachovia, who has recently been purchased by Wells-Fargo, has received top ranking among U.S. banks in the American Customer Satisfaction Index. According to Birmingham Business Journal, although Wachovia led the banks for customer service in the last eight years, its score fell to 76 from 79 in 2007. The bank scored 79 in 2005 and 80 in 2006, on a 100 point scale.
Can customer service be outstanding even when business is failing?

Are you Tracking Customer Feedback?

Jackie Huba recently posted on the Church of the Customer Blog that a CMO survey showed that most companies are not tracking customer feedback. This poses as a huge problem because companies can not improve if they do not track what is being said about them. Here’s a recap of the findings of the survey conducted on 400 senior marketers.

Of the survey participants:

• 56% said their companies have no programs to track or propagate positive word of mouth
• 59% don't compensate employees based on improvements in customer loyalty or satisfaction
• only 16% said their companies have a routine system in place for monitoring what people are saying about them or their brands online

How is your company listening to customer feedback?

Bringing customer service back to the company

Customers of SourceGas will soon be receiving better customer service. The company will be bringing both billing departments and customer service call centers back into their company.

Director of Corporate Communication Lin Mize had this to say about the service overhaul:

"We are bringing the billing and the call center in-house to be staffed and managed by SourceGas employees. We apologize for the inconvenience this [billing issues with the current system] has caused, and our employees are excited to get this opportunity to directly help customers."

There will be extensive testing of the new billing system. They will also use the working in-house call center they acquired when they purchased Arkansas Western Gas Company.

For more information, visit trib.com.

This company sees a need to bring customer call centers in-house. What do you think about providing customer care call center in house? Is this something that could improve your relationship with your customers?

Understanding the Customer Lifetime Value

Earlier today I came across this post on Performix Integrated Marketing in which they highlight a recent article that Michelle Eggers of SAS Institute wrote about the importance of implementing marketing metrics and Customer Lifetime Value in your business.

Here’s a brief summary of the article as described by Performix:

1. Look at the processes your marketing department is using. Are they ahead or behind schedule on jobs? Efficient, or chaotic? Keep a grasp on the people part of the process to be able to increase productivity.
2. Distinguish between measuring campaign performance (e.g.. how the cross-sell campaign did online in the last 3 months) and look at the OVERALL effectiveness of all marketing programs, direct and traditional or broadcast media. You need to have the data on how all are performing in order to develop the right media mix.
3. Develop and focus on broader business metrics that are not specific to any marketing program, like: sales growth, market share, total sales and total profits, Are they aligned? How do they interact?
4. Look at the customer: except for managing marketing processes, all of the above relate to the customer. Are they affecting the customer positively or negatively? Create customer metrics, for things like: products (owned) per customer, customer profitability, customer satisfaction, net-adds, and customer lifetime valiue.

Does your business fully understand CLV?

Hospital provides customer service training at the request of employees

Recently in the Wichita Eagle, they reported on the efforts of the staff of Wesley Medical Center to improve their customer service. Human Resources Director Lisa Becker said that an employee engagement survey showed an overwhelming number of employees requesting training in the area. The hospital is now offering a one hour refresher course on customer service basics, and managers attended the course first. The employees could attend the session voluntarily, and 40% of the employees at the hospital already have done so. The course covers basics such as how they view customer service in other areas, attitudes in uncontrollable situations, and teamwork.

Are your employees asking for training? What have you done to educate them on customer service in your field?

Free Webinar: Unlock Survey Secrets: Turn Text Responses into Insight

SPSS will host a complimentary web seminar presented by Jane Hendricks, Product Marketer, SPSS Inc and Frank Maduri, Sales Engineer, SPSS Inc. This web seminar will take place on Wednesday February 25th from 2:00 to 3:00 PM EST. Reserve your webinar seat by registering now. Mention priority code MWS0021BLOG.

Here’s a brief recap of the webinar:

Open-ended survey questions allow people to express themselves in their own words; and give researchers rich new insights into attitudes and preferences regarding service, purchase decisions, product design, employment, operations, whatever the issue under study.
If you’ve limited your surveys to close-ended questions due to the time and expense of reading and manually coding text responses, this session can be your organization’s first step toward maximizing the value of your survey data.

Created specifically for open-ended survey responses, SPSS Text Analysis for Surveys uses proven technologies in computational linguistics to make it far more powerful than typical text-coding procedures. It allows you to categorize hundreds, even thousands of responses in a fraction of the time it would take to do so manually. Then easily export results for further analysis and graphing.

What you will learn by attending:

• How to turn text into quantitative data
• How to save even more time by automating the creation of categories and the coding of responses
• How to uncover category relationships using visualizations such as bar charts and tables
• How to export results to Excel, SPSS or other software for analysis
• And more!

Don’t miss your chance to view this free webinar. Click on the link below to register.
https://www1.gotomeeting.com/register/189677043

Rethinking customer loyalty

In a recent post at CustomerThink, Robert Howard looks at the way that customer loyalty works. In today's world, customer loyalty programs have become the norm, and everyone is using them. Sometimes, they find ways to drive away the customers with the fine text included in the sign-up forms. He wonders if customer loyalty should be turned upside down, and a company should measure how loyal they are to their individual customers. How are you treating your customers that are loyal to you? Are you recognizing them as loyal patrons of your business?