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Actual for You - 11 Customer Services Lessons on One Phone Call
Equipment Every Private Investigator Needs because we are human and we can’t know everything. But I do think that a “boot product specialist” certainly should have known if any of the brands “run” wide. And if not he should have been trained to do #6 below.Agatha Christie, the well-known mystery writer, always made sure the private investigators she wrote about had the tools they needed to solve the crime. If you are a private investigator, or want to become one, the equipment you use can play a large part in whether you succeed or fail in gathering the information you need.Every investigation is different, but for most cases, you will need to gather some “picture” evidence; that is, photographs or video clips. You don’t need to go to an expensive store to get the right supplies: any local electronics store should have what you need, unless of course you are working for the government. Look for a video or photography camera that has a good, clear picture, a long zoom lens (because you don’t want to be too close to the subject you are filming), and extra batteries with a fast-acting battery charger. For digital cameras, buy a large memory card, in case you need to store hundreds of photos.Take the time to find the right vehicle for the job. You don’t want something conspicuous, like a Lamborghini or a bright purple van. It’s important to be able to park near a building or on the side of a road and blend right in with your surroundings. Buy a vehicle with tinted windows, or tint them yourself with 5. Know Your Customers. I am a very good customer for the company I called. Good enough that they send me a hard back version of their master catalog that is about an inch and a half thick. I certainly believe in giving every customer Make-You-Happy Customer Service. With that said, your best customers should be taken care of even to a higher degree. Yes, the customer that buys $200,000 a year from us does get Super Duper Make-You-Happy Customer Service. In this instance, the product specialist should have pulled up my account, saw that I was one of their best customers and done something special to take care of me. What could he have done? He could have called someone in the company that knew my answer and called me back. He could have called his manufacturers and called me back. He could have gone to the warehouse and tried on some boots to see if any “ran” wide. He could have done something. 6. Train people to know where to go to get answers. I covered this a bit in #5. There are a lot of things he could have done to answer my question, but the biggest frustration was that he never seemed to listen Educate Your Customer to Make the Sale If you've been on the internet for any length of time, you've probably seen thousands of ebooks, courses, and other types of tutorials on just about any topic that you can imagine.The problem with a lot of these courses and ebooks businesses are giving away are junk. They don't contain any real information. Many are nothing more than blatant sales pitches.Although it may seem like a waste of time to create a course when this technique seems to be so overused, have you ever considered that this could be a way to sell more of your products and services?Although the market seems to be flooded with courses, ebooks, and tutorials, there's alway room for this material provided it's high quality.What is key is creating a course or ebook, or some other type of tutorial is to offer some real choice information nuggets your readers don't know.Although you can create a course, ebook, or tutorial out of others' articles, this isn't really a good idea unless you can find really valuable, and useful, content.If you decide to go this route, you'll need to do some research. There are plenty of top notch article directories where you can find articles to create your course:Ezine Articles - http://www.ezinearticles.com Go The other day, I called one of our very good clients who has a brick and mortar store, excellent mail order business, superb telemarketing organization, and a top notch web site. They don’t have a retail store in my area, so I usually order on line or call them. I order from them for a number of reasons: * They are a very good client of ours. * Their products are superb. * Their service is almost always at the Make-You-Happy level . But even the best service businesses fall short and that’s why we need to be consistent and persistent in reinforcing Make-You-Happy Customer Service in our business. One of the areas that continually amazes me is how often people assume they know what you are going to ask and therefore don’t really listen to what you’re saying. I had ordered top quality expensive wading boots, for fly fishing in rivers, from them. When I got them, they were too narrow. I looked through their catalog and saw that the only boot they had in the catalog was available in wide widths was a lower price model. Now, I’m not snobby, but my feet are old enough that I need the support and extra sole thickness. I called the 800 number to ask if they had any higher quality boots in wide widths. A very nice good customer service person told me that was the only boot that actually came in a wide width, but suggested that I call back in the morning and ask for a “boot product specialist” and see if one of the boots “ran” wider than the model I ordered. I thought that was a great idea! I buy New Balance Tennis Shoes for that reason. I don’t need to get a “wide”, their shoes just “run” wider. So I called back the next day and asked for a product specialist. I told him that I had already found out that the only boot they carry in a wide was their inexpensive model and that the customer service person suggested I call back to see if any of the more expensive model “ran” wide and might work for me. He said, “Let me check”. It was quite for a while, so I thought he was “checking” with someone else to see if any of their boots “ran” wider. But then I heard him mumbling on the phone. I found out that he was just reading from the catalog. I told him I had already read the catalog and that I knew none of the other boots came in wide widths and ask again if he or anyone there knew if any brands “ran” wider. He just went back to reading the catalog. Finally, I just said, “Never mind” and hung up. I went to the local fly shop that is not very convenient for me to get o and found that they didn’t have any boots that came in wide widths either. But they did have a great boot that ran wide. I bought a $139.00 pair of boots. And yes, you guessed it. The company I called in the first place has the same boot. The “product specialist” was very nice and polite and I’m sure he had customer service training. The company’s customer service is consistently too good to think it just comes about without training. There are at least 11 lessons to learn from this one call. 1. Train your team to truly listen. Pay particular attention to people in your organization who tend to answer questions from you and others before they listen to the entire question. Pay particular attention to those who like to finish questions for other. This is so important that I’m adding it as Make-You-Happy Customer Service Secret #56. Truly listen and don’t assume that you know what someone is going to say. You know what happens when you assume. You make an ass out of u and me - ass-u-me. 2. Monitor your customer service. This seems almost to obvious to be a Make-You-Happy Customer Service Secret, but I’m adding it as secret #57 because, while it is obvious, almost no one does it. Whether you use secret shoppers, your own people secret shopping, recordings or you secret shopping don’t ass-u-me that your people are doing what they’ve been trained to do. And don’t ass-u-me that they do the same things when you or and manager are around and when you’re not. You surely can’t monitor every customer service interaction, but in this case, over time the business I called would certainly hear a similar customer service interaction and be able to address it in their training 3. Make sure your customers know what to do when they are not being served properly. This is a continuation of Make-You-Happy Customer Service Secret #4, Be sure you Customer’s Know Your Extraordinary Customer Service Expectations. They need to not only know your extraordinary customer service expectations, they need to know what to do when they don’t get Make-You-Happy Customer Service. In as many ways as you can, tell your customers what to do when they don’t get Make-You-Happy Customer Service. Tell them when they are on hold on the phone. Tell them in any communication that you send to them. Tell them with signage. If I had been told, “If we ever let you down, please call Bill at xxx-xxx-xxxx I would have likely called Bill who would have found out that they do have a great brand that runs wider. They would not have only thrilled me, they would have me writing an entirely different story about their Make-You-Happy Customer Service and I would have told you their name and I would have spread a huge amount of positive word-of-mouth advertising! 4. Know Your Product. I’m not going to harp on this too much because we are human and we can’t know everything. But I do think that a “boot product specialist” certainly should have known if any of the brands “run” wide. And if not he should have been trained to do #6 below. 5. Know Your Customers. I am a very good customer for the company I called. Good enough that they send me a hard back version of their master catalog that is about an inch and a half thick. I certainly believe in giving every customer Make-You-Happy Customer Service. With that said, your best customers should be taken care of even to a higher degree. Yes, the customer that buys $200,000 a year from us does get Super Duper Make-You-Happy Customer Service. In this instance, the product specialist should have pulled up my account, saw that I was one of their best customers and done something special to take care of me. What could he have done? He could have called someone in the company that knew my answer and called me back. He could have called his manufacturers and called me back. He could have gone to the warehouse and tried on some boots to see if any “ran” wide. He could have done something. 6. Train people to know where to go to get answers. I covered this a bit in #5. There are a lot of things he could have done to answer my question, but the biggest frustration was that he never seemed to listen Starting a Metal Detecting Business? Don't Do it Until You Reads This Tips ide width, but suggested that I call back in the morning and ask for a “boot product specialist” and see if one of the boots “ran” wider than the model I ordered.If you are looking start a business selling metal detectors you need some knowledge on the subject to make sure that your customers feel comfortable purchasing from you. If you are already knowledgeable about metal detectors than starting your own business and watching the profits come in should happen sooner rather than later.Selling metal detectors can be extremely profitable and you can sell new, used, and metal detecting accessories. There are many people out there that are passionate about the hobby of metal detecting. In this article we will take a look at your possible customer base and how to find new ones.If you want to sell metal detectors in larger quantities you may want to get in touch with many of the metal detecting clubs that are located in your area. Offer a discount to the club members so that they will get into your store and want to find a good deal. You may not make as much profit at first but the word of mouth and loyal customers will continue to grow. When the members are in your store they will want to take advantage of the discounts and purchase some more of the higher profit items such as accessories.When starting a metal detecting business you will want to carry new metal detectors and you will need to contact I thought that was a great idea! I buy New Balance Tennis Shoes for that reason. I don’t need to get a “wide”, their shoes just “run” wider. So I called back the next day and asked for a product specialist. I told him that I had already found out that the only boot they carry in a wide was their inexpensive model and that the customer service person suggested I call back to see if any of the more expensive model “ran” wide and might work for me. He said, “Let me check”. It was quite for a while, so I thought he was “checking” with someone else to see if any of their boots “ran” wider. But then I heard him mumbling on the phone. I found out that he was just reading from the catalog. I told him I had already read the catalog and that I knew none of the other boots came in wide widths and ask again if he or anyone there knew if any brands “ran” wider. He just went back to reading the catalog. Finally, I just said, “Never mind” and hung up. I went to the local fly shop that is not very convenient for me to get o and found that they didn’t have any boots that came in wide widths either. But they did have a great boot that ran wide. I bought a $139.00 pair of boots. And yes, you guessed it. The company I called in the first place has the same boot. The “product specialist” was very nice and polite and I’m sure he had customer service training. The company’s customer service is consistently too good to think it just comes about without training. There are at least 11 lessons to learn from this one call. 1. Train your team to truly listen. Pay particular attention to people in your organization who tend to answer questions from you and others before they listen to the entire question. Pay particular attention to those who like to finish questions for other. This is so important that I’m adding it as Make-You-Happy Customer Service Secret #56. Truly listen and don’t assume that you know what someone is going to say. You know what happens when you assume. You make an ass out of u and me - ass-u-me. 2. Monitor your customer service. This seems almost to obvious to be a Make-You-Happy Customer Service Secret, but I’m adding it as secret #57 because, while it is obvious, almost no one does it. Whether you use secret shoppers, your own people secret shopping, recordings or you secret shopping don’t ass-u-me that your people are doing what they’ve been trained to do. And don’t ass-u-me that they do the same things when you or and manager are around and when you’re not. You surely can’t monitor every customer service interaction, but in this case, over time the business I called would certainly hear a similar customer service interaction and be able to address it in their training 3. Make sure your customers know what to do when they are not being served properly. This is a continuation of Make-You-Happy Customer Service Secret #4, Be sure you Customer’s Know Your Extraordinary Customer Service Expectations. They need to not only know your extraordinary customer service expectations, they need to know what to do when they don’t get Make-You-Happy Customer Service. In as many ways as you can, tell your customers what to do when they don’t get Make-You-Happy Customer Service. Tell them when they are on hold on the phone. Tell them in any communication that you send to them. Tell them with signage. If I had been told, “If we ever let you down, please call Bill at xxx-xxx-xxxx I would have likely called Bill who would have found out that they do have a great brand that runs wider. They would not have only thrilled me, they would have me writing an entirely different story about their Make-You-Happy Customer Service and I would have told you their name and I would have spread a huge amount of positive word-of-mouth advertising! 4. Know Your Product. I’m not going to harp on this too much because we are human and we can’t know everything. But I do think that a “boot product specialist” certainly should have known if any of the brands “run” wide. And if not he should have been trained to do #6 below. 5. Know Your Customers. I am a very good customer for the company I called. Good enough that they send me a hard back version of their master catalog that is about an inch and a half thick. I certainly believe in giving every customer Make-You-Happy Customer Service. With that said, your best customers should be taken care of even to a higher degree. Yes, the customer that buys $200,000 a year from us does get Super Duper Make-You-Happy Customer Service. In this instance, the product specialist should have pulled up my account, saw that I was one of their best customers and done something special to take care of me. What could he have done? He could have called someone in the company that knew my answer and called me back. He could have called his manufacturers and called me back. He could have gone to the warehouse and tried on some boots to see if any “ran” wide. He could have done something. 6. Train people to know where to go to get answers. I covered this a bit in #5. There are a lot of things he could have done to answer my question, but the biggest frustration was that he never seemed to listen Die Cutting 39.00 pair of boots.Die Cutting is a procedure by which a material is cut to an exact design or shape with the help of a die. It is a creative process similar to cookie cutting. It involves the cutting of shapes from plastic sheets using a shaped knife and pressing the edge into one or more layers of sheeting. After completing the cutting, a certain pressure is applied using mechanical or hydraulic presses. Die cutting is sometimes known as dinking or blanking.For cutting a wide range of objects simply and quickly, the machines use steel rule dies. Use of scissors demands more patience and time. Die cutting makes the tedious job of cutting various shapes and letters faster and easier. The materials that can be die cut include sheet magnet, heat and shrink plastic, foil, self-adhesive rubber, fabric, paper wood, poly foam, faux fur, leather, sponge and thin metal.Different types of die cutting are available. The most popular are the steel rule, rotary, laser and ultrasonic processes. Rotary die cutting is also known by the name gasket die cutting. It is usually utilized for foam, rubber and plastics. Steel rule dies are commonly used to cut folding cartons, corrugated boxes, gaskets, fabric, plastics and composites. For the thermoplastic materials that tend to fray And yes, you guessed it. The company I called in the first place has the same boot. The “product specialist” was very nice and polite and I’m sure he had customer service training. The company’s customer service is consistently too good to think it just comes about without training. There are at least 11 lessons to learn from this one call. 1. Train your team to truly listen. Pay particular attention to people in your organization who tend to answer questions from you and others before they listen to the entire question. Pay particular attention to those who like to finish questions for other. This is so important that I’m adding it as Make-You-Happy Customer Service Secret #56. Truly listen and don’t assume that you know what someone is going to say. You know what happens when you assume. You make an ass out of u and me - ass-u-me. 2. Monitor your customer service. This seems almost to obvious to be a Make-You-Happy Customer Service Secret, but I’m adding it as secret #57 because, while it is obvious, almost no one does it. Whether you use secret shoppers, your own people secret shopping, recordings or you secret shopping don’t ass-u-me that your people are doing what they’ve been trained to do. And don’t ass-u-me that they do the same things when you or and manager are around and when you’re not. You surely can’t monitor every customer service interaction, but in this case, over time the business I called would certainly hear a similar customer service interaction and be able to address it in their training 3. Make sure your customers know what to do when they are not being served properly. This is a continuation of Make-You-Happy Customer Service Secret #4, Be sure you Customer’s Know Your Extraordinary Customer Service Expectations. They need to not only know your extraordinary customer service expectations, they need to know what to do when they don’t get Make-You-Happy Customer Service. In as many ways as you can, tell your customers what to do when they don’t get Make-You-Happy Customer Service. Tell them when they are on hold on the phone. Tell them in any communication that you send to them. Tell them with signage. If I had been told, “If we ever let you down, please call Bill at xxx-xxx-xxxx I would have likely called Bill who would have found out that they do have a great brand that runs wider. They would not have only thrilled me, they would have me writing an entirely different story about their Make-You-Happy Customer Service and I would have told you their name and I would have spread a huge amount of positive word-of-mouth advertising! 4. Know Your Product. I’m not going to harp on this too much because we are human and we can’t know everything. But I do think that a “boot product specialist” certainly should have known if any of the brands “run” wide. And if not he should have been trained to do #6 below. 5. Know Your Customers. I am a very good customer for the company I called. Good enough that they send me a hard back version of their master catalog that is about an inch and a half thick. I certainly believe in giving every customer Make-You-Happy Customer Service. With that said, your best customers should be taken care of even to a higher degree. Yes, the customer that buys $200,000 a year from us does get Super Duper Make-You-Happy Customer Service. In this instance, the product specialist should have pulled up my account, saw that I was one of their best customers and done something special to take care of me. What could he have done? He could have called someone in the company that knew my answer and called me back. He could have called his manufacturers and called me back. He could have gone to the warehouse and tried on some boots to see if any “ran” wide. He could have done something. 6. Train people to know where to go to get answers. I covered this a bit in #5. There are a lot of things he could have done to answer my question, but the biggest frustration was that he never seemed to listen Save Money by Renting Construction Equipment for Your Renovation Project! > If it is time to renovate your home, consider becoming your own contractor and save yourself hundreds or thousands of dollars! If you are capable of completing the work yourself, bypass the costly contractors and finish the project on your own and under budget. For a larger project, hire individuals directly to work on each specific part of the renovation. Hiring sub contractors directly will still save you a great deal of money and allow you to better apply your budget to quality materials. One major problem individuals have when beginning their renovation project is their lack of construction equipment in their stable. Renting this equipment is an excellent choice for anyone who needs the items on a limited basis and does not have the funding to purchase the often costly equipment for themselves. Construction equipment can be rented at a variety of places. Look in your local yellow pages to find a specialized construction equipment rental business in your area. These businesses are usually prevalent and are capable of renting everything under the sun, from small tools to tractors or caterpillars. You may need to call or visit different rental companies to find out their rules, costs, and the equipment available before you mak You surely can’t monitor every customer service interaction, but in this case, over time the business I called would certainly hear a similar customer service interaction and be able to address it in their training 3. Make sure your customers know what to do when they are not being served properly. This is a continuation of Make-You-Happy Customer Service Secret #4, Be sure you Customer’s Know Your Extraordinary Customer Service Expectations. They need to not only know your extraordinary customer service expectations, they need to know what to do when they don’t get Make-You-Happy Customer Service. In as many ways as you can, tell your customers what to do when they don’t get Make-You-Happy Customer Service. Tell them when they are on hold on the phone. Tell them in any communication that you send to them. Tell them with signage. If I had been told, “If we ever let you down, please call Bill at xxx-xxx-xxxx I would have likely called Bill who would have found out that they do have a great brand that runs wider. They would not have only thrilled me, they would have me writing an entirely different story about their Make-You-Happy Customer Service and I would have told you their name and I would have spread a huge amount of positive word-of-mouth advertising! 4. Know Your Product. I’m not going to harp on this too much because we are human and we can’t know everything. But I do think that a “boot product specialist” certainly should have known if any of the brands “run” wide. And if not he should have been trained to do #6 below. 5. Know Your Customers. I am a very good customer for the company I called. Good enough that they send me a hard back version of their master catalog that is about an inch and a half thick. I certainly believe in giving every customer Make-You-Happy Customer Service. With that said, your best customers should be taken care of even to a higher degree. Yes, the customer that buys $200,000 a year from us does get Super Duper Make-You-Happy Customer Service. In this instance, the product specialist should have pulled up my account, saw that I was one of their best customers and done something special to take care of me. What could he have done? He could have called someone in the company that knew my answer and called me back. He could have called his manufacturers and called me back. He could have gone to the warehouse and tried on some boots to see if any “ran” wide. He could have done something. 6. Train people to know where to go to get answers. I covered this a bit in #5. There are a lot of things he could have done to answer my question, but the biggest frustration was that he never seemed to listen Appliance Repair Careers because we are human and we can’t know everything. But I do think that a “boot product specialist” certainly should have known if any of the brands “run” wide. And if not he should have been trained to do #6 below.In most homes, appliances are some of the most used items in the house. This is because various home appliances are used for a number of purposes, including cooking, cleaning, regulating temperature, and providing entertainment. Given the ?punishment? that home appliances are subjected to, it is only natural to expect that some of them may break down from time to time as the result of a number of reasons, like wear and tear.In these scenarios, one of the most important people who can help solve the problem is a home appliance repairperson, who can fix the appliance so that it can be used again. Fortunately, given the demand for home appliance repairpersons, a career in this profession can be good source of earning a living that has made it attractive to a lot of people and augurs well to most people who own home appliances.What They DoThe job of a home appliance repairperson usually involves making sure that appliances are working well and preventing unwanted breakdowns. They usually do this through a number of steps that allow them to remedy the problem with the appliance. The first step in the process is to inspect the appliance and to check for any malfunction, which may include unusual noises, vibrations, and leakage. To be able t 5. Know Your Customers. I am a very good customer for the company I called. Good enough that they send me a hard back version of their master catalog that is about an inch and a half thick. I certainly believe in giving every customer Make-You-Happy Customer Service. With that said, your best customers should be taken care of even to a higher degree. Yes, the customer that buys $200,000 a year from us does get Super Duper Make-You-Happy Customer Service. In this instance, the product specialist should have pulled up my account, saw that I was one of their best customers and done something special to take care of me. What could he have done? He could have called someone in the company that knew my answer and called me back. He could have called his manufacturers and called me back. He could have gone to the warehouse and tried on some boots to see if any “ran” wide. He could have done something. 6. Train people to know where to go to get answers. I covered this a bit in #5. There are a lot of things he could have done to answer my question, but the biggest frustration was that he never seemed to listen well enough to hear the question properly. We have a lot of products at American Retail Supply. So regardless of how much training we give them, there is absolutely no way our reps can know everything when we put them on the phones. So we spend a lot of time in our training teaching them where they need to go to get answers. When they start, we constantly remind our reps of the most important sentence to learn, “I’m sorry, I don’t know, but I’ll find out and get back to you by ...” And then get back to them when you told them you would. 7. Create loyal customers. In this instance, one of my favorite places to shop let me down. But that’s unusual. Their service, products and delivery are usually superb and because they are, I’m loyal and I’ll continue to shop with them. 8.You can learn multiple lessons from poor customer service in your business. The normal response to bad customer service is to simply blame the person who delivered the poor service. As you can see by the ten things we learned from this one phone call, you can learn a great deal from one instance of poor service and there are lots of things that could have been done so that this didn’t happen. It’s not just the reps fault. 9. If you truly believe in, and practice, Make-You-Happy Customer Service you will have multiple ways to catch and fix poor customer service. When you implement Make-You-Happy Customer Service, you have many more ways to identify, catch, and fix, service that is less than Make-You-Happy. With Make-You-Happy Customer Service they would have had these opportunities to recognize this problem, fixed it, or it may not have happened at all: * Training * Monitoring * The customer contacting someone else * Know your product * Know your customer * Train people to know where to go to get answers 10. Your customer service will improve when you implement the Make-You-Happy Management System with the Make-You-Happy Customer Service. When you implement the Make-You-Happy Management System all team members are trained to recognize service that falls short of Make-You-Happy Customer Service. They are trained to not only recognize it, but also do something about it. I don’t have room to go into the Make-You-Happy Management System here, but it it not only reinforces Make-You-Happy Customer Service, it creates it! 11. Three Fingers Pointing Back at You. I learned a lot of wonderful lessons from my mentor Dick Thompson. One of them is, “remember, when you point your finger at someone else, three fingers are pointing back at you”. If I’m with someone else and we get poor customer service the other person will often says “I can’t believe how rude (stupid, incompetent, whatever) that person was.” My response is always the same, “That’s the management’s fault.” If customer service in your business is anything less than great you have one person to blame... yourself! There are only a few reasons for poor, or great, customer service and you are responsible for all of them. |