Hey Everyone – first off, my apologies!  The blog was down for a few days.  My VISA card was compromised, and as such the hosting fees did not come out as usual – and my host (which will remain nameless for now, but you can easily find out who it is by doing a reverse DNS search on the site name) decided to cut me off and not tell me why, other than by leaving a message on their help system.

Great.  That really helps.

They have my e-mail address and phone number.  Is it so hard to provide GOOD customer service?  Apparently it is.

I recently went to visit a local call center, they deal in insurance products.  Can you guess what their customer satisfaction rate is?  I will give you a hint, it IS NOT less than 80%.

Can you believe that?  They won a local call center of the year award and the SQM award for customer satisfaction.

Now you may be thinking that there must be several different insurance companies and they just happen to provide the best service.  Wrong.  They are the ONLY insurance company in the area.  Does that tell you something?

I had the opportunity to sit down and listen in on calls with one of their agents.  They are very well trained, they have excellent soft-skills and they listen to the caller.  That’s why they rate so highly.  Being a monopoly they could easily abuse their position in the industry and do what they want – but they’ve put the customer first and it’s paying off.

They are saving money.  Their agents are happy.  The management is happy, and they get funding when they need it because their previous business case was compelling enough that they proved they could do it by winning awards and getting HIGH customer satisfaction results.

Regardless of the type of business you are in, customer service is the key.  You don’t want to give away the store, but you want to be fair.  You don’t need to antagonize or alienate the customer (as most retail operations do) but calmly explain.  But most of all you NEED TO HAVE a customer service “manifesto” (I like that word).  You need to ensure you have a solid customer service policy that you can explain to your staff, and to the customer when they come in.

It doesn’t need to be difficult.  Here are two examples:

1. Home Depot – 90 Days Return Policy With Receipt
2. Sears – for years used the slogan “Satisfaction Guaranteed, or Your Money Refunded”

Another local clothing store that I go to don’t even have a policy!  They say that you can return ANYTHING, provided it’s not been worn or altered at any time.  I returned a pair of pants that were one year old.  They took them back, and in fact offered me 50% off what I paid for them if I wanted to keep them. 

Now that’s service.

What’s your Customer Service Policy?

Technorati Tags: call center, call center leader, call center manager, call centers, Customer Service, good customer service, Value of Good Customer Service

Hi All,

In keeping with my daytime job, and understanding how important it is to have a functioning Customer Service Center I have installed an application at the domain http://support.oibo.org – you can log your question there, or concern or just about anything and my outsourcer – Jason (actually Jason is someone that worked for me and who went on to better things, but was willing to take on handling Customer Service for me) – will take care of replying to the enquiry.  If he is not able to answer your question, he will redirect the question to me.

I actually “found” this application while reading a post over at Richard Lees’ site (I really like reading Richards’ site — he seems like a really down-to-earth person and many of his posts are positive — prompting you into action).

Thanks,

Mohamed

Technorati Tags: Customer Service, Internet Business, internet marketing

Hi,

I’ve talked about providing customer service on a few occasions here, but providing customer service is not the same as the Value of Good Customer Service.

It might be perfectly fine to push out a customer service application on your website, staff it.  But that won’t mean anything if you don’t put any effort into ensuring that the people providing the service are providing a value add to you, your site and products and most of all your customers.

What is the value of good customer service?  In todays environment where word of mouth spreads like wildfire and websites set-up to expose companies bad customer service the value of providing good customer service is the difference between making a living and running a successful internet business and working at a JOB – again.

In the world of Internet Marketing and Internet Business good customer service is even more critical.  As it is, the industry does not sit well in most regulators eyes.  They think we’re all MLM con-artists that are riding on the tails of guillable consumers.  There are many exceptional marketers and business people out there busting their chops providing valuable products services and good customer service to ensure that their customers get value.  They got there by providing value to their customers, by listening to them and resolving their issues.

Here are links to a few articles that speak to the value of good customer service.

1. http://www.bizjournals.com/albany/stories/2000/06/12/smallb3.html
2. http://www.thesimpledollar.com/2008/01/22/the-value-of-customer-service/
3. http://www.entrepreneur.com/sales/customerservice/index115864.html

So are you providing customer service, or providing good customer service that your customers value?  If you provide a ture value added service they will be willing to pay more for your product or service since they realize that their questions will get answered and they won’t need to continually hunt you down for a simple reply.

Regards,

Mohamed

Technorati Tags: Customer Service, Internet Business, internet marketing, Value of Good Customer Service

Hi,

As you may know, I am a Director of Operations for the company I work at (yes JOB).  Part of my responsibilities are to manage Customer Service.  While CS always gets overlooked, and seems to be “down trodden” it serves an pivotal role in the company.

Consider if the VP of Business Development, or Business Development Managers, or IT or IT Operations were handling Customer Service.  Would they get anything done?  Ever?

No – they would be too busy handling customer service issues.

Why do most major companies have customer service departments?  To free up their senior management team to focus on the important part of the business – GROWING IT.

I found a great post on James Brauschs’ website, it was actually pointing to another fellow by the name of Frank Haywood.  He’s discovered how important it is to provide customer service AND NOT be doing it all yourself.

Have a read of his informative post, I think you will agree with him.

Regards,

Mohamed

Technorati Tags: Customer Service, customer support, Internet Business, internet marketing

Hi,

I was on Richard Lees’ website and read an excellent post.  He talks about Customer Service.  This is a topic that is very near, and dear to me as I’m a Director of Customer Service and Operations.  I replied to his post.  After re-reading what I wrote, I thought I’d post it here…

Hi Richard,

Customer service is paramount to any business.  During the day, I work as a Director of Customer Service and Operations and deal with escalations (among other things) all day long.  Nothing is more satisfying then speaking with one of our customers, and being able to resolve an issue that they have had with their purchase.

My challenge has always been to ensure my team feels the same way about servicing our merchants and customers as I do — which isn’t always the easiest thing to do.

Customer service isn’t brain surgery – treat your customers like you would like to be treated.  It’s so easy, it’s just so unfortunate that not everyone knows or understands this and are not worried about upsetting a customer and loosing them.

This is even more prevalent on the internet, where individuals can hide behind their website.  Since you don’t have a face-to-face relationship they feel that they can get away with anything.

Perhaps with Web 1.0 you could – but in a Web 2.0 world, where people are social networking like there is no tomorrow — you certainly can not do this.  Forget about telling 10 people – one post on a social network could attract hundreds or thousands of people knowing about the poor service you (not you directly, of course but in general anyone that is selling a product or service) offer.  As the web matures even further, there will be a greater emphasis placed not only on quality content but providing purchasers of products GOOD customer service.

Regards,

Mohamed

Do YOU provide GOOD customer service?  Do you respond to them in a timely manner?  Do you have the systems and processes in place to deal with a customer service issue?

If you don’t – then what are you waiting for?  Maybe you are waiting for that one customer that posts to his SN regularly and has accumulated hundreds of friends to post a negative comment about you, your product and site?

I hope not.

Regards,

Mohamed

Technorati Tags: Customer Service, Internet Business, internet marketing