Happy New Year
Welcome to 2024!
Welcome to 2024!
“Attitude is everything. Would you rather have an employee with great skill and a poor attitude or one with average skill and a great attitude? Skills can be learned. Attitude can be changed, but it is much more difficult … People with positive attitudes are winners. They think positively. The words ‘don’t’ and ‘can’t’ are not in their vocabulary.”
When you are in the process of hiring a candidate to fill an open job, what is more important to their long-term success: their experience or their attitude?
In the thoughts stated above by author Tom Northrup, who wrote Five Hidden Mistakes CEOs Make: How to Unlock the Secrets that Drive Growth & Profitability, you can substitute the word “experience” for “skill” … because the two go virtually hand in hand. And, when it comes down to making a final hiring decision, opt for attitude.
The benefits of hiring for attitude over experience, skills and aptitude include:
Hiring based only on experience could cause a potentially great employee to slip through the cracks of your system. Audrey McLaughlin, RN of PhysciansPracticeExpert.com adds these words of advice:
“Look for candidates with a positive attitude over aptitude. Many skills and technical aspects of a position are fairly simple to teach a person. It is much more difficult to change a person’s attitude. Look for people who are active listeners. This can be assessed in the interview process, or even over the phone. People who pay attention, nod in understanding, and follow through with tasks you request during the hiring process fall into this category.”
Virtually every job has tests to assess technical proficiency. But what you can’t test – or determine by checking references – is whether a candidate is motivated to learn new skills, think innovatively, work as part of a team, communicate effectively or cope with failure. That’s where the right attitude comes strongly into play.
Credit: TRCStaffing.com
Customer service culture: Hire for the attitude and train the skillIn “Article”
Customer service is a life styleIn “Article”
Best to Work Smarter, Not HarderIn “Article”
“Attitude is everything. Would you rather have an employee with great skill and a poor attitude or one with average skill and a great attitude? Skills can be learned. Attitude can be changed, but it is much more difficult … People with positive attitudes are winners. They think positively. The words ‘don’t’ and ‘can’t’ are not in their vocabulary.”
When you are in the process of hiring a candidate to fill an open job, what is more important to their long-term success: their experience or their attitude?
In the thoughts stated above by author Tom Northrup, who wrote Five Hidden Mistakes CEOs Make: How to Unlock the Secrets that Drive Growth & Profitability, you can substitute the word “experience” for “skill” … because the two go virtually hand in hand. And, when it comes down to making a final hiring decision, opt for attitude.
The benefits of hiring for attitude over experience, skills and aptitude include:
Hiring based only on experience could cause a potentially great employee to slip through the cracks of your system. Audrey McLaughlin, RN of PhysciansPracticeExpert.com adds these words of advice:
“Look for candidates with a positive attitude over aptitude. Many skills and technical aspects of a position are fairly simple to teach a person. It is much more difficult to change a person’s attitude. Look for people who are active listeners. This can be assessed in the interview process, or even over the phone. People who pay attention, nod in understanding, and follow through with tasks you request during the hiring process fall into this category.”
Virtually every job has tests to assess technical proficiency. But what you can’t test – or determine by checking references – is whether a candidate is motivated to learn new skills, think innovatively, work as part of a team, communicate effectively or cope with failure. That’s where the right attitude comes strongly into play.
Credit: TRCStaffing.com
Effective customer service can help improve customer satisfaction and loyalty, increase positive word-of-mouth marketing about your brand and consequently can help lead to a boost in customers and conversions.
No matter the form your customer service takes, you can take it to the next level (and hopefully retain more customers) with the following strategies;
The goal of customer service isn’t simply to fix a problem. It is also to provide a positive experience that will elevate the perception of your brand in customers’ eyes. Empathy helps you do just that by connecting with customers on a personal level. In doing so, you establish a human touch that no marketing or advertising campaign could ever match.
One of the most effective ways to boost your team’s capacity for patience is to train them to separate their personal feelings from the situation. As a customer service rep, it’s easy to feel like an angry customer is upset with you personally and this can put you on the slippery slope toward lashing out.
Team members should work to remember that the customer’s feelings don’t have anything to do with them as individuals. Doing so will provide the space necessary to remain level-headed no matter what.
Crystal-clear communication is critical for any customer service interaction, but it becomes even more pressing if the customer service experience isn’t happening face-to-face. Don’t assume you understand what the client is asking, instead, articulate your understanding of their problem and desired solution so you can make sure you’re both on the same page before moving on to resolving the issue. You want to confirm that you’re both still on the same page. Don’t move on until you both understand where things stand.
It’s easy to feel like solving a customer’s issue marks the end of the interaction. But it’s important to follow up with customers afterwards to see how they’re faring and to confirm that they aren’t experiencing any residual issues.
Doing so conveys to your customers that the investment you expressed during your interaction was heartfelt and that your company remains committed to their experience. Even if nothing needs to be fixed, following up provides you with an opportunity to ask for feedback about how your customer service could be further improved.
Credit: Dan Scalco
Time management is the ability to use one’s time effectively or productively, especially at work. But this is easier said than done. This is the beginning of a new year and we must have set out goals that we hope to achieve before the year ends. Yet, there are a lot of things competing for our time and attention every minute around us. How do we manage our time well in order to hit our targets for the year?
1. Set goals correctly. Make sure your goals are S.M.A.R.T: Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, and Timely.
2. Prioritize wisely. Set tasks based on their importance and urgency.
3. Set a time limit to complete a task. Decide what time to allot to different tasks and be disciplined to meet your time target.
4. Take a break between tasks to regain strength and focus.
5. Organize yourself. Keep a schedule of your activities.
6. Remove non-essential tasks/activities based on your priority list above. Don’t perform tasks that can be conveniently outsourced.
7. Plan ahead. Have a to-do list.
The implication of poor time management is waste of time, energy and other valuable resources. What more? The pressure of never meeting a deadline might adversely affect your health and productivity. Save yourself all these woes and learn time management.
Customer service is as important as anything that has to do with your business/organization. Here are the best 3 strategies to help improve your customer service standards:
To provide excellent customer service, you first need to understand their needs and experiences. For these, you need to ensure that you provide your customers’ multiple ways to share their feedback. You can do this through surveys, feedback forms sent via email or even establish a complaint system.
This will let you know all about their good, bad, and ugly experiences when interacting with your brand. Through this, you gain real insights into what you’re doing well, and which areas require improvement. This can help to establish trust, and may even prevent them from sharing their concerns or negative comments on social media.
Improving your customer service begins with building a strong customer service team. Here’s how you can strengthen your service performance.
Customers should be able to switch between multiple channels yet enjoy a consistent quality of service. This can help boost your brand’s reputation and credibility.
Here are some excellent multi-channel services for your customers.
You should consistently focus on improving your customer service standards. Great customer service can help you build trust, improve brand awareness, gain customer loyalty, drive sales, and attract new customers through valuable recommendations.
In a 1968 study, Oregon State University Professor Charles Goetzinger ran an experiment in his classroom. Without informing the rest of his class, he had one student come to each meeting in a black bag with only his feet visible. Goetzinger then observed the reaction of other students. Initially, his students treated the “black bag” with hostility. Over time, however, as they kept seeing the black bag in class every day, their hostility turned into curiosity. Eventually, classmates developed friendships with the student in the black bag.
Goetzinger’s experiment only proved the efficacy of a theory that has been posited long before: familiarity breeds content. You can use that.
When trying to advertise your products or services, retargeting people who have visited your website before will yield significantly better results than targeting raw prospects. In fact, a particular study found that the click-through rate of a retargeted ad is 10 times higher than that of a display ad and that website visitors who are retargeted with display ads are 70% more likely to convert.
You can also boost sales by significantly expanding the reach of your content by repurposing and distributing it. A simple blog post can be turned into an infographic, video, podcast, slide presentation, and so much more. When distributed across other channels, some people are likely to see it more than once – and that’s good for your sales!
You can also leverage the mere exposure effect by resharing your existing content on social media. Buzzsumo researched this effect by analysing 100 million articles and found that constantly resharing articles on social media can increase reach and engagement by 686%.
Credit: WordStream
In a 2011 study, researchers observed consumers as they assembled IKEA boxes, folded origami, and built Lego pieces. They found that participants saw their “amateurish creations” as similar in value to the creations of experts. More interestingly, the participants expected others to share this view of their work.
Based on these results, the researchers concluded that people tend to value a product more if they were involved in its creation – even if they were originally uninterested in being involved. They termed this the “IKEA effect.”
The IKEA effect has a clear application in your marketing strategy: when you involve users in the process of creating your product or services, they are more likely to convert when you sell it to them.
Consumers can be involved by committing time to product development, by giving input in the process of its creation or improvement, or by investing money. An example of this in action is crowdfunding campaigns: when people contribute financially to the development of a product even before it is made, they are more likely to do everything to ensure it succeeds. While crowdfunded projects were massively successful, researchers have attributed its success not to the funds raised but to the community and sense of ownership the crowdfunding fostered.
Whether it’s the packaging or certain parts of the product itself, offering a customizable option involves your customers and potential customers more personally. A notable example of this is Coca-Cola’s Share a Coke campaign. When Coca-Cola launched this initiative and allowed users to have their own customized version of the Coke, sales exploded. And the results were almost instant. Just within the first year, Coca-Cola saw significant, measurable success:
Credit: WordStream
Communications with individuals and groups outside of your organization can directly impact brand loyalty, visibility, reputation, and revenue. Effectively managed internal communications creates a ripple effect that can positively influence external relationships with customers, third-party vendors, business partners, and even competitors.
While there is significant value in prioritizing employee satisfaction alone, it also tends to organically translate into more effective interactions with customers. It’s not hard to understand why: Happy people naturally exhibit more positive attitudes, and others are more likely to respond in kind.
Employees’ opinions about their company can also influence customer relationships. There is a growing public interest in how well companies treat their employees, and customers often look to employees’ opinions to inform their own buying decisions.
As effective communication practices become a regular part of your everyday internal operations, they will naturally begin to extend to external communications with groups such as third-party vendors.
Consistency, in particular, is key to nurturing these relationships. Consistent, on-brand communication naturally fosters a sense of leadership and authority that will encourage other companies and third-party vendors to trust in and collaborate with your organization.
Communication is a means of protecting your company’s voice. If you do so in a way that evokes respect and admiration, this will increase the perceived value of a partnership with your brand—which in turn will increase your brand reach.
No matter the company, there is always room for improvement in internal communication. Here are a few steps you can take to start improving this for your team and company today:
Credit: Grammarly
Good customer service is essential for every business to attain its customers. Offering customers a positive welcome, helping them resolve their questions, and responding quickly will satisfy them and keep them happy. When you can keep up a good relationship with your customers, you will likely gain their loyalty, which will translate into regular sales and profit. For more on the power of good customer service and how to achieve it, here’s more.
Many benefits come with offering good customer service. Not only does it do wonders for your brand reputation, but it also:
Good customer service will help you create more personal relationships with your customers. You will be able to build relationships through good customer service as you can keep up a conversation, ask them for feedback to improve your business, and ensure that they feel respected.
For instance, whether you offer quick responses or handwritten thank you cards, good customer service will go a long way and help you build more connections with your customers.
Happy customers will likely lead to an increase in sales. If you satisfy them, then they will be happy to make a purchase.
An increase in sales is common in businesses that offer great customer service. When you offer good customer service as a business you will boost your brand reputation, which will attract new customers. New customers and happy current customers will guarantee to turn into more sales.
If you can offer good customer service and make your customers feel happy, then they may be more willing to pay more money for the product.
Let’s say you have a business that is looking to increase its prices due to demand, production, and competition, then your loyal customers will be happy to pay more money if you ensure to maintain good customer service. Increasing your prices does not need to be a worry for your business. Instead, you will attain more profit.
Credit: New to HR
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