Internal Communication

Why should I ask for feed back and suggestion?

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Every manager needs the feed back and suggestion because it creates high performers consistently is a crucial activity for every customer service manager, it provides insights which can be used to improve your products, services or staff interaction and offers the best way to measure customer satisfaction. This way, you get credit for the results you generate.

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As we all know that every employee strives for professional growth and often this implies more than just money. The desire for challenging situations, bringing in substantial growth and going beyond personal capacities is what drives many employees to want to become high performers.

So as a manager, you can motivate fellow team members by holding them to higher standards, asking for more and lending them the support they need to get there. And as they start to meet these expectations with more efficiency and a renewed sense of purpose, ask them if they have the data, the tools, and support to carry out everything that’s expected out of them. And more importantly, ask them: “Do you get credit for the results you generate”?

Asking these questions frequently will help you generate a stream of ideas to continually improve your team’s and your customer’s experience. Act on the feedback and suggestions you receive to improve customer engagement and empower your employees to deliver exceptional service that will delight your customers. And finally, ask them if they are happy with what they get out of it.

Empower your team ahead of customer’s frustration

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 Empowering team members: How can I help you?

Despite acknowledging the importance of good customer service, many businesses still subscribe to the opinion that service incurs business cost. However, what’s important here is to realize that good customer service is more like an investment that can help drive business growth. Hiring quality talent, and ensuring they have the right skills, training and tools enables them to empathize with customers and actively listen to them. This is the key to providing a consistently good service experiences.

Without proper tools and resources, your team may not feel empowered enough to effectively resolve customer queries or respond appropriately to their frustrations. As much as you want your teammates to empathize with your customers’ problems, you need to first look at serving your own team members and empathize with them.

Therefore, it’s a good practice to turn the tables on your teammates and ask them, whether in a group discussion or a while having a one-on-one conversation: “How can I help you?”

What’s also important, is to listen to their suggestions and then act on them. Have an in-depth discussion on every view of theirs, no matter how small you insignificant you feel they may be. If they want you to know about it, then it is a big deal to them. And if it’s a big deal to them, it ought to be a big deal to you!

Identify any training needs that your support members may have. There are well designed customer service training programs available out there that focus on improving communication, listening, problem solving and analytical skills. Training all your agents on a predetermined set of competencies equips them with the right mindset and a standard process to deal with customers and builds a sense of team spirit.

Remove all the potentially unhappy and disgruntled customers

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What are your customers telling you?

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This question happens to be a very potent diagnostic tool. You cannot succeed in creating happy customers if you do not start by removing all the potentially unhappy and disgruntled customers first.

You need to have your team understand that it’s okay to let your customers vent their anguish and open up to them. They shouldn’t be looking to defend a poor customer service, or a poor product experience. Allowing your customers to vent will lead you to discovering new perspectives on their overall experience with the company, and why they be feeling so frustrated.

Once this mindset has been inculcated in the team, they will start paying a closer attention to the specific language customers use to describe their problems, or frustration. Recording, or capturing their words verbatim, will help you identify the root cause of the issue and will be a great help when the team looks for a solution.

Ideally, it’s your customer who should be talking 90% of the time. Your team, on the other hand, should be busy making a note of their complaints, frustrations and concerns. This will help you:

  • Identify the exact problems your customers face
  • Get to know the most common struggles from your customer’s perspective
  • Know the exact language your customers use
  • Understand your customers better

This information is crucial to providing better support and have much more engaged and delighted customers. In the words of Alan Weiss, the author of “Million Dollar Consulting”:

“Ask your customers to be part of the solution, and don’t view them as part of the problem.”

Feel free to drop your comments!

NOT hearing from your customers doesn’t mean that they’re satisfied

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  • You want to know if your customers are satisfied? Then try to hear from them all the time. These are real life examples of good customer service in retail……
  • Promising that you will deliver good customer service isn’t enough. Consumers want a guarantee, or proof, that they will have a good experience.
  • People don’t just talk about their in-store experiences while they’re at the store. They rant or rave about it on the Internet, via social media, in forums, on review sites, in person, etc. Whether it’s 195 angry customers or 432 happy customers, make sure you’re listening – the right tools can help you get ahold of all your online customer feedback so you don’t have to spend time looking for the

Be an example of good customer service in retail by going the extra mile to make your customers feel special

Because rules were made to be broken.

How many times have you silently pledged your loyalty to a brand or company because they bent the rules for you (even if it was just over something tiny)?

That just recently happened to me with Amazon. I had signed up for Prime membership but then decided to cancel it because they stopped carrying the product that I normally order from them. I was one day past the monthly renewal period, but after contacting their customer service department, they promptly issued a refund for the subscription fee from that month and immediately cancelled my account. All in under 10 minutes and completely hassle-free.

I know I was one day late, yet they made it work. It feels like they made a special exception, just for me. And I definitely won’t hesitate to do business with them again.

Doing little ‘favors’ like that for your customers can significantly increase customer loyalty and trust for your brand.

Jottings from a CEO Note Book: How to Get (and Stay) in Touch with Your Customers

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For a CEO to lose touch with what his customers want, need and feel is a surefire route to failure. So do you want to stay in touch with customers without seeming obvious or gratuitous? It’s easy. The key is to stay in touch in a meaningful and memorable way.

What is memorable? Having a purpose that benefits the other person–not you. Here are some ways to pull that off:

Set up an alert on each customer.

One of the tool that will help you keep track of customers (or competitors). Google Alerts.

Pick a tool and set up an alert on the person’s name, company name, her industry, maybe topics of personal interest … and then you can reconnect with something to offer: congratulations, information about new competitors, trends in the industry, etc.

The key is to turn a generic “Thinking of you” into a much more meaningful, “I immediately thought of you when I saw this.”

Offer to recommend.

Many people feel uncomfortable asking others to complete LinkedIn Recommendations. Instead of waiting for a customer to ask, jump in and write one. You will not only strengthen a connection but also get the chance to (subtly) describe your business and services when you discuss how you and your customer did business in the past.

Or go further. Be a matchmaker and recommend a customer’s services to another customer. If you pick the right people, both will be grateful for the introduction.

Never forget: People tend to like, and remember, the people who like them.

Fix Your Processes to Avoid Moments of Misery

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Moment of misery can also be referred to negative customer service issues actually gives you the opportunity to bring out your best customer service.

Your inner risk manager should be working overtime to identify what could go wrong in your business and how to prevent it.
The following questions could resolve or prevent negative customer service issues.

1. How will you handle the problem for the customer? Map out an immediate solution and deliver it with the right attitude and a sense of urgency that will restore the customer’s confidence in you.

2. Analyze the source of the problem to determine why it happened.

3. Has this problem happened before? If it has, why has it recurred? Analyze why to prevent, or at least minimize, the chances of it happening again.Your inner risk manager should be working overtime to identify what could go wrong in your business and how to prevent it.

4. If this is the first time the problem or mistake has occurred, determine what you can do to prevent it from happening again. (See next question.)

5. Can a process prevent the issue from recurring? This is the follow-up to question No. 4. If you can establish a process to prevent the problem from recurring, it will serve you well.

6. Can you catch the problem before the customer catches it and calls you? Have a system in place to fix the problem before the customer contacts your company or let the customer know about the issue before he finds out on his own. Be proactive.

7. Which parties are involved in preventing this problem from recurring? Determine the stakeholders responsible for eliminating the problem and what their tasks should be to resolve the issue.

Ways to Boost Satisfaction for the Customer of the Future

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To boost your customer’s satisfaction, you will have to always treat every customer as if they were a VIP. Customer service is the golden key to any successful business – if you don’t have it, act fast and make it a priority.  Give every customer the same excellent treatment as you would like to receive yourself. Keep measuring customer satisfaction. Know how you should survey your customers – the right way. 

  • Treat every customer as if they were a VIP. Give every customer the same excellent treatment as you would like to receive yourself.
  • Keep measuring customer satisfaction.
  • Know how you should survey your customers – the right way.
  • Keep an eye on what customers say about you on social media.

The truth is, it’s no secret that nobody likes to hear the negative comments about themselves or their business – but instead of getting hurt, take it as a great opportunity to turn your customer’s experience around. Nobody runs a perfect business with the perfect customers, receiving any kind of feedback helps you and your company to learn and grow as you go.

Addressing a complaint or bad experience shows customers that their voices are being heard and that each individual is a valued customer. Increasing engagement and value can increase customer loyalty, resulting in continued engagement and sales.

Two Questions Every Customer Service Manager Should Be Asking

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No matter how good your product may be, or how competent your customer service team is, the only thing that matters is how your customers feel about your company.

The basic truth is, Your most important assets are not your customers and your employees. It’s how your customers and your employees feel about your company. Your success as a customer service manager is directly proportional to your ability to drive simultaneously customer satisfaction and employee engagement. 

And the key to providing an exceptional customer service lies directly in the ability of your team to deliver a positive experience. If you are a customer service manager, you are probably aware that it’s your team that is the face of your company, and your customers’ experiences will be driven by the skill and quality of the support they receive.

 So you begin by asking at least one employee these two questions every day:

What are you hearing?  You cannot even begin to satisfy customers until you remove all the potential dissatisfiers within the customer experience. 

Then you ask again, What can I do for you? Jan Carlzon, former CEO of SAS Airlines and author of the book, Moments of Truth said, “If you’re not serving the customer, your job is to be serving someone who is.” To serve the customer, your employees need the empowerment, tools and resources to take care of their customers. Without the tools and resources, they will not feel empowered to solve customer complaints or respond to customer questions.

As a customer service manager, it’s your ability to drive both customer satisfaction, and employee engagement, that defines your own success. Happy agents are more likely to go above and beyond while servicing your customers. And customers who feel they are cared for, are the ones that will return.

Are Your Employees ‘Engaged’?

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Team building is one of the most effective ways to foster engagement within a company and that having engaged employees can even boost revenues by 2.5 times. 

So to Keep Employees Engaged and Motivated

  1. Encourage Creativity. …
  2. Seek Feedback From Employees. …
  3. Promote a Positive Culture. …
  4. Keep Workers Busy. …
  5. Encourage Collaboration. …
  6. Incorporate Plants Into Your Workplace. …
  7. Employee Recognition. …
  8. Reward Hardworking Employees.
  9. Set Challenging But Realistic Goals. Goals are very important to complete any task. …
  10. Recognize Good Work. …
  11. Trust Them. …
  12. Track Productivity. …
  13. Schedule Team-Building Activities. …
  14. Keep Lines Of Communication Open.

Then to make them happy,

  1. Give praise. …
  2. Communicate clear expectations. …
  3. Invest in a happiness work culture. …
  4. Inject fun at work. …
  5. Give them a break.

The Evolution of Measuring Customer Experience

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Customer experience metrics have several uses. Most organisations now report having some level of customer experience measurement program in place. But the majority are still not able to show how the customer experience metrics they collect directly impact business performance or how they are using them to improve customer experience.

Measuring and improving customer experience is difficult in part because there isn’t a widely agreed upon definition of what constitutes a customer experience. This lack of definition also creates the potential issue of customer experience devolving into everything. But there has been some great progress on the definition and measurement front.

According to Thompson ”They can be used to communicate the rationale for previous investments; validate whether improvements have taken place; set goals and targets for future improvements; or intervene when remedial action is needed.”

  1. Peace of mind has the strongest impact on customer satisfaction, loyalty and word of mouth.
  2. Moments of truth are the next most important attributes to positively impact loyalty and word of mouth.
  3. Outcome focus (the customers’ ability to achieve their goals) effects loyalty and word of mouth but only to a lesser extent than peace of mind.
  4. After peace of mind, product experience has the strongest impact on customer satisfaction, but not as much impact as the other three dimensions on loyalty or word of mouth.

This research offers additional insight into how to measure customer experience. It suggests that the peace of mind dimension needs to be incorporated into how you create and calculate your customer experience metric. If you plan to create a measure of customer experience, consider how your organization is set up to deliver on these attributes and how you would measure each of these dimensions.