Gary Harouff and the Human Experience

By Peter Lawless

In order to be hugely successful at business, you must provide a truly excellent level of service to your customers. You must continually exceed their expectations and delight them. Knowing how to amaze your customers is something that you must instill within the company culture. Here are some pointers to ensure you have loyal customers. Find what works and model excellence.

Customers that are delighted and truly amazed by your service, will not only remain loyal and profitable, they will also be an excellent source of referrals for you.

Create a culture of excellence

In order to truly be a respected organization, it is important to instill an excellence culture in the organization. Just as everyone is responsible for selling your offering, so is everyone responsible for servicing your customers.

It is important to utilise people’s best skills in the correct positions in a team sport. The same is true in your company. There are many psychometric testing systems around that help determine what roles a person is best suited to fulfill. These can be used at recruitment stage. With existing employees, you need to introduce something like this tactfully!

Suffice it to say, that some one in customer service needs to be a caring type of person. Just for clarification, by customer service, I mean, ensuring that a customer who purchases your offering is able to make use of it in a way that will fulfill and exceed their expectations.

Set the customer up to be delighted

When a customer orders a product or service, clearly demonstrate to them what they are getting, in terms of what, when and how, with what resource.

Equally important, ensure that the people involved in providing that service, know exactly what the customer expects of them.

Then your company is in a position to delight the customer, by delivering exactly what was said on the tin. And then some, always go that little bit extra! Don’t solve problems too quickly

One of the hallmarks of good customer service is the ability to turn a complaint into an opportunity.

When an angry customer is on the phone the natural reaction is to try to solve the problem as quickly as possible. However if you study those who are expert in this area, before they solve any problem, they quickly and easily gain rapport with the customer.

What an irate customer really needs empathy. It is important to understand what it will take to cool him down, make them feel understood. The customer needs to feel that their problem is being taken seriously.

Once this is done, the customer is ready to have their problem solved, and they will definitely appreciate the service. They are now in a position to become a delighted customer who, in all probability will continue buying from you.

Find what works and model excellence

Let’s say that one of your employees is already consistently delighting your customers with the level of service they provide. The key to success is to ensure that all employees model the same behaviour.

This also ensures that the employee feels rewarded and appreciated, and are far more likely to stay with your company. There are many different techniques to find out what it is exactly what it is that the model employee is doing well. Common sense is a great technique!

Create a Customer Service Process

Just as you have financial systems, manufacturing processes, sales processes and distribution processes, it is very important to have a sound customer service process.

If you need any help in that area, let us know, and we will be glad to perform a customer service assessment and suggest ways in which you can truly delight your customers every time.

By Lars Schak

The service and support manager, who is responsible for either front-line service and support providers or those reinforcing the front-line staff, plays a crucial role in every service-organization, especially in more competitive and bad times.

If the manager sees the job simply in terms of allocating work or making sure spaces and positions are available, then they will be missing some of the most urgent elements of the manager’s role.

As a CS/BS Manager, your range of daily activities may be varied and heavy in a speedy environment. The very famous management writer and professor H. Mintzberg has identified three big major managerial roles to every manager; they are

A) interpersonal related,
B) informational related and
C) decision related.

Every manager in every organization does or should perform these three above mentioned roles.

1) An interpersonal role contains at least three different activities. They are leading staff, acting as a figurehead of the organization, and liaising with others - externally and internally.

2) An informational role contains also at least three different activities. They are monitoring staff and customers, disseminating information and acting as a spokesperson for information to other parts of the organization and suppliers.

3) A decisional role contains at least four activities; they are building entrepreneurship the department, handling disturbances among staff or customers, resolving conflicts internally, staff and departments and negotiating, influencing and coaching the staff and bosses.

All these roles are not discrete, they do of course overlap and interact - but managers are more commonly assessed on the basis of their performance in the decisional role, due to overall performance as a holistic manager.

While the role of the manager can be described in this way, we could draw one critical role which is appropriate for a customer service organization.

The customer service manager is in a position, where he could critically look at both customer needs and the company’s way of approaching customers, at the same time, which gives him a tremendous advantage is building further business.

By Drew Stevens
Posted by Gary Harouff
How many times have your pondered methods to provide customer satisfaction? How much of your money and time is spent on costly surveys and loyalty programs? Save your time and money and stop ruminating through the customer satisfaction maze. The time has come to set your compass on the true direction of client needs. Based on over 26 years of research and thousands of client issues, we have found four factors clients require. These four factors drive success, control profits and assist to retain clients.

Accuracy

Clients deplore inaccuracy. Case reviews illustrate wrongful charges on cell phones, cable television and automobile service as exemplars. While these represent only a microcosm of industries, they are illustrated here to identify with most readers. What frustrate clients most are not infrequent fees, but the shallowness in resolution.

Maria recently took holiday in Mexico and used a credit card as payment for food and beverage. Through a myriad of unfortunate circumstances she was wrongfully charged incorrect fees. Since December 2007, she has been striving to resolve the fees with both the card issuer and hotel. Thus far, she has spent more time and money on the telephone surpassing the actual fees. A business frequent flier and a frequent guest of the hotel chain, she has terminated the card and any future hotel business.

A major customer service issue for most organizations is 1) capable talent and 2) decision power. For many firms an inordinate time is spent passing blame and discovering those in charge. At some point the cost of doing business, becomes unprofitable. Too much time is spent in the quagmire of bureaucracy. Organizations must allow employees to reach swift conclusions to customer issues. Let employees make decisions, they will learn from this while reducing stress and developing timely solutions.

Second, periodic audits, even in large companies enable leaders to discover trends and frequent anomalies. Constantly review the customer issues and streamline the bottleneck expeditiously.

Availability

Many years ago I learned a wonderful best practice from my mentor - return all calls within 90 minutes. In my many years of service I am happy to report a 95% return rate. I do obtain challenges periodically but callers frequently lose. Clients devour the spontaneity. Clients want accessibility to their vendors. How often do you enjoy lengthy hold times?

The proliferation of voice mail and email creates barriers to communication. Think about times when you call a bank or credit card issuer. Your call falls prey to an automated phone bank, requiring you to input your account information, social security number, phone number, name of first-born, etc. With each keystroke, you are required to repeat this perfunctory exercise only to repeat yet again to a live operator. By this time your only desire is to end the call!

Organizations must streamline processes and become available. The best organizations use live operators without rote scripts. If voice prompts are required eliminate wasteful methods to expedite wait times.

Partnership

The proliferation of the Internet evens the playing field for clients and organization. Similar to fifty years ago, clients have issues and they clamor for quick resolution. When possible they desire one voice for all questions. They desire collaboration. Rather than frequent several vendors, it is easier for one vendor to address the myriad of issues clients face. Collaborative efforts leverage solutions, price and most importantly client vendor relations. Organizations eliminate duality in sales and service issues, lower cost of acquisition while clients obtain expeditious solutions to their issues.

Advice

Seth Godin had a wonderful Blog entitled “The Marketing of Fear”. The notion exists in selling that consumers have pain. Sales training schools and many managers instruct sales professionals to identify the pain for the benefit of establishing solutions.

The truth is that no consumer desires to be reminded of his or her pain. Clients want from selling professionals: trust and respect. Clients want to know you understand the issue, researched their objectives and can expeditiously provide value in solutions. There is a need for a trusted advisor that continually illustrates client efficiency. Pain is negative, value positive.

Refrain from FEAR FACTOR and create relationships with clients. Deter the notion of pain and begin to ask provocative questions that align with objectives to gain immediate results. Questions keep them talking, illustrate your continued interest and open the door for additional questions. Customer service and selling professionals come and go, advisors remain in site forever!

Customer Service is not an exact science. New issues arise daily requiring flexibility. Yet after significant research, issues typically align with the four factors- accuracy, availability, partnership and advice. Competition and information increase the difficulties for success. Differentiation is paramount in today’s global landscape. Review these four functional areas and begin to lower service costs and increase client retention today.

Author: Robert L Moment

Customers of every kind of business imaginable these days bemoan the state of customer service. While the global economy and the Internet have given businesses the opportunity to serve more clients than ever before, the trend has also given way to impersonal, lackluster customer service. It’s unfortunate that most businesses today don’t realize that they are regularly losing valuable customers if they don’t focus on providing an exceptional customer service experience.

In most businesses, once a customer begins dealing with the customer service department, he or she is already in a negative mindset. The best customer service representatives aren’t those that simply neutralize the problem. Outstanding customer service representatives take a negative and turn it into a positive that ensures the customer is not only happy, but is convinced he or she has had an outstanding experience – the Wow Factor – that he would not have gotten with any other company.

The key ingredients of the Wow experience are:

• Seamless Service
• Trustworthy Service
• Attentiveness
• Resourcefulness
• Courtesy
• Pro-active Service

Seamless Service means providing everything the customer needs, not just what is required to meet the minimum standards. It’s about making sure that they don’t have to wait and wonder. Customers will appreciate a smooth, seamless process for addressing their needs. If there are several steps needed to take care of their concerns, keep them in the loop – update them by email or with a quick phone call so that they know you are working on the situation and progress is being made. By keeping them abreast of what is going on, you are letting them know you haven’t forgotten about them and that you understand their concerns – reassurance and communication are powerful customer service tools.

Trustworthy Service is essential to retaining customers. Promising a customer anything and delivering nothing is the surest way to not only lose a customer, but get the kind of “word of mouth” bad press that can ruin you. Under promise and over deliver – If you promise a satisfactory solution and then go the extra mile to not only satisfy the customer, but gain their appreciation and “Wow” them, you will get word of mouth that will bring new customers to you.

Attentive Service means paying attention during and after the initial contact. How many times have you contacted customer service and been subjected to an obviously scripted response from the customer service representative? Does it give you the feeling they aren’t really listening, but just trying to get to the end of their canned presentation?

Attentiveness should run through every customer service experience, from listening carefully to the customer’s concerns to following up after the exchange is over to make sure their needs have been met. Listening isn’t just about hearing – it is about understanding what is really being said. The words are just the beginning –what about the customer’s tone of voice? Her mood? Is she disappointed, angry or frustrated? Keying in to the customer’s mood and responding appropriately is essential, and it means not following a script.

Resourcefulness means finding solutions when there appear to be none. Many companies have iron-clad policies that must be followed whenever a problem arises; however, sometimes a customer won’t be satisfied by the “company line” approach. Resourceful customer service representatives know that there is always a way to move beyond the standard procedures in order to make a customer happy. Resourcefulness involves finding a solution when a solution isn’t apparent. This may mean moving up the chain of command before the customer demands to talk to your superior. Companies with excellent customer service also give their representatives some leeway so that they can come up with creative solutions on their own. When a customer senses that you are going beyond the norm to help them, they will feel valued and respected.

Courtesy is a commodity that is becoming rarer every day. It takes so little to be polite but it is becoming a lost art. Say please when you ask a customer a question, thank them for their information and take your time talking to them. Nothing makes a customer feel more devalued than being treated like a number. Use the person’s name, make requests rather than demands and know when to apologize. When something goes wrong for a customer, they want to hear that you understand their frustration and that you are genuinely sorry that they are being inconvenienced. It takes nothing to say, “I’m so sorry you aren’t satisfied and I hope we can do something to correct this.”

Pro-Active Service means not waiting for the customer to come up with a solution that you simply follow through on. A pro-active customer service representative anticipates the needs of the customer and follows through. Don’t wait for the customer to ask you what you are willing to do – anticipate the question and answer it before they can ask. If they call and say they aren’t satisfied, apologize and immediately suggest some solutions. Customers want you to take the lead – acknowledge their unhappiness, offer a solution or solutions and explain to them how you are going to follow through. Pro-Active service means taking the lead, which will reassure your customers that you know what you are doing and that you will follow through.

If you keep these six keys in mind – seamless service, trustworthiness, attentiveness, resourcefulness ,courtesy and pro-active service – you will be able to offer every customer the Wow Customer Service Experience that inspires loyalty and keeps customers coming back for more.

Author: Rosanne Dausilio, Ph.D.

Historically, customer service was delivered over the phone or in person. Customers didn’t have many choices, and switching to competitors was cumbersome. Today, these methods are but two of the many possible touch points of entry for any given interaction. With all the options the Internet brings, competition is literally a click away. If, as has been reported, 65% of your business comes from current customers, then in order to stay in business, you best focus on winning the satisfaction and loyalty of those customers.

With continued attention on customer service, customer retention, and lifetime value of the customer, it is no surprise that contact center operations continue to increase in importance as the primary hub of a customer’s experience. The contact center is still the most common way that customers get in touch with businesses. In fact, Gartner reports 92% of all contact is through the center.

While much attention has been focused on the technology and benefits of providing multiple channels for customer contact, little consideration has been directed to handling the human part of the equation—training Customer and Technical Service Representatives to field more than just telephone communications. With the explosion of e-commerce, the need to reinforce keeping the human element in the equation is paramount. Certainly now more than ever before in history, customer-centric service is a necessity.

Twenty five years from now customers will still be human beings, still be driven by desires and needs. Virtual environments do not create virtual customers. Except for the simplest transactions, some customers still need to be connected with and nurtured by a live person. Amazon.com has learned this. They employ hundreds of traditional customer service representatives using phone lines to help customers with questions that cannot be dealt with online.

With the ability to handle simple transactions available by using sophisticated, self-service technology, customer calls, faxes, and/or e-mails are more complex, more complicated, sometime even escalated, heightening stress levels.

At the same time, research has identified the Customer Service and Technical Representative as one of the ten most stressful jobs in America today, with job stress costing employers an estimated $300+ billion yearly in absenteeism, lowered productivity, rising health insurance costs and other medical expenses (up from $200 + billion just ten years ago.) A recent NIOSH study reported that 50% of employees view job stress as a major problem in their lives–double from a decade ago.

Lines of demarcation have blurred and change is rampant in today’s center. Why? Because of our cell phones, voice mail, faxback, PDA’s, and e-mail. We are now more available and accessible than ever before. The lines are no longer clear as to where our jobs or projects begin and end—they can follow us home again and again.

In today’s competitive marketplace there is little difference between products and services. What makes the difference–what distinguishes one company from another–is its relationship with the customer. Who has the awesome responsibility for representing themselves, their companies, perhaps their industry in general? Front line representatives.

The ability of a company to provide human-to-human connections–back and forth live communication–continues to be critically important. The fact is voice is the most natural and powerful human interface, real time or otherwise. That isn’t going to change any time soon. To the customer, people are inseparable from the services they provide. Actually, the person on the other end of the phone is the company. It is no wonder, then, that companies with superior people management, invest heavily in training and retraining, reinforcing the human element.
Yet customers still leave. The latest statistics on why are:

• 45% because of poor service
• 20% because of lack of attention.

This means that 65% of your customers leave because of something your front line is, or is not, doing.

• 15% for a better product
• 15% for a cheaper product and
• 5% other

This is the good and the bad news. It’s bad news because that’s a high percentage. On the other hand, it’s good news because there is something you can do about it—it resides on the human side.

It is agreed that people, process, and ‘state of the art’ technology are what make companies work. For me, the people process is most important. After all, it’s the people who truly make the difference.

Never lose sight of the fact that we are human beings, not merely ‘human doings.’ The fact is 70% to 90% of what happens with customers is driven by human nature, having nothing to do with technology. Technology is meant to enable human endeavors, not to disable them.

Extraordinary service or lack thereof, separates the good from the great companies. As more and more organizations are turning to the contact center as a strategic player in the competitive landscape, it is in the throes of re-inventing itself to step up to the plate and become the heart of a company’s customer facing operations.

Empathetic Responsiveness
The ability to put yourself in another person’s shoes and see their point of view—not agree with them, not make them right and your company wrong—but hear what they are saying. After all, basic needs of all of us are to be heard and treated with dignity and respect.

I think of a call as an ABC process. ‘A’ represents the customer presenting their question, request, complaint or problem. ‘C’ is the ultimate resolution. Most times ‘B’ is either skipped or left out—because of metrics, calls in queue, or simply because you know the answer before the customer is even finished speaking. ‘B’ is where the agent acknowledges what they hear—be it upset, anger, frustration, or fear. Or, a simple ‘thank you for taking the time to call and bring this to our attention.’ After all, if a customer calls in to complain, you have the opportunity/challenge to turn them around. If they don’t call, and only complain to other people, you have no opportunity. Does going through ‘B’ take longer? Not at all. It allows you to move the customer to a more productive interaction and close the call. I’ve heard many customers repeat their opening paragraph (A) over and over, while at the same time the agent is trying to get them to resolution (C). Red alert! Red alert! Acknowledge what is behind the words and you will move them quickly to ‘C.’ I believe you can’t go from A to C without going through B.

If all customers wanted just the facts (and some do), they could ascertain the information online. Most customers (people) want the human interaction, someone to hear them, someone to care. A simple, “I’m so sorry that was your experience. My name is Rosanne and I’m going to do my best to help you right here and now.”

Self Service
When asked the question in a recent study, “What is the biggest barrier your company encounters to self-service effectiveness?” only 14% of the customers replied they don’t know about it.’ This means that the 86% who do know about it and attempt to use it (1) find it too hard to navigate, (2) can’t find the answers, and/or (3) don’t trust the system or the answers they do find.

Research shows that customers prefer to deal with companies who are the most consistently accessible. When customers experience a level of service from email and chat support, for instance, that equals or exceeds voice support, then and only then will they gladly migrate to those channels to resolve their problems and inquiries.
To increase customers’ satisfaction, be sure to:

 
1) Phone: Have a ‘zero out’ option on your system
2) Website: Have your phone number or a button to speak with a human
3) E-mail: Rephrase the issue in the opening paragraph.

Purchasing Process
In an interview with Delia Passi Smalter, the former publisher of Working Woman and Working Mother magazines, we found very interesting statistics regarding female demographics (Incentive Magazine, 2003). It seems that women are making over 85% of consumer purchases and influencing more than 95% of total goods and services. Smalter distinguishes the purchasing process women and men go through. The biggest one, she says, is that women need to feel more of a connection to the TSR; they need to trust the corporation and the brand. Price becomes secondary. Women take in a lot of information, including recommendations from friends and family, company and brand reputation, feelings about her contact person, and how the brand will impact her life. Not so for men. Men take a systematic approach, allowing outside influence to some degree, but mostly they are focused on price.

One of the most influential documents in the world, the U.S. Constitution, begins with “We, the people…” Yes, ‘we the people’ are what makes the difference.