Top 7 Tips to Deliver Exceptional Customer Service Instead of Growing Your Competitor's Bottom Line

With the holiday season just beginning, businesses are scrambling to get more customers and show more sales. However, retail and business to business (B2B) research continues to suggest businesses are failing to deliver adequate to exceptional customer service. Poor customer service dramatically affects the bottom line of every organization. Hence, all that scrambling may be for naught.

The 2005 American Customer Satisfaction Index, a survey conducted by the University of Michigan, is at one of its lowest levels in the past 10 years. IBM survey of 2004 Christmas shoppers revealed poor customer service was second only to long lines. Good customer service is essential in developing loyal customers who are only a click or a few steps from visiting your competitors.

1. Assess Your Organization

Customer service begins with the internal customer also known as your employees. Assess your organization from the top down. In many cases, poor customer service is a symptom of a more serious undiscovered problem. HINT: Incorporate proven criteria such as Baldrige to determine what you do well and where you need to improve.

2. Assess Your Customer Service Training

Poor customer service is not because your employees don't know how to, but probably more often than not they don't want to. If your customer service training focuses only on knowledge and skills, you are draining your K.A.S.H. Box because you are failing to address attitudes and habits.

3. Don't Assume Employees Know What Good Customer Service Is

With the world a far different place than 50, 30 or even 10 years ago, don't assume that your potential and even current employees know what good customer service is. Specifically define what good customer service is. HINT: Good customer service is when a customer comes back, spends more and doesn't visit the competitor.

4. Deliver Customer Service Training in Real Time

Customer service training should extend beyond the procedures and policies. Infuse good communication skills and professional appearance within your learning sessions. Create mentors that new employees can job shadow.

5. Ask Potential or Existing Employees If They Buy From You?

If you are a retail chain, ask employees if they have ever bought from you? What did they like about your store or business? Many businesses ask the "Why do you want to work here?" question. Why not dig a little deeper?

6. Ask Yourself If You Would Buy From You?

This question may sound ridiculous, but would you buy from you?

7. Focus on Delivering Exceptional Customer Service

Exceptional customer service is when a customer brings or directs a new customer to your business.

Customer service is the beginning and the end for any business. All businesses are in customer service because without customers there would be no business. If your customer service is not at the exceptional level, then you are missing incredible opportunities to build your business and you are wasting a lot of money and resources. And,if that isn't bad enough, your poor customer service is growing your competitor's business.

Customer loyalty is the strategic advantage. Receive your downloadable Customer Loyalty Audit at http://www.processspecialist.com/customer-loyalty.htm

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Please feel free to contact me, Leanne Hoagland-Smith, Your Chief People Officer and Business Coach, who works with individuals and organizations that are tired of not being where they want to be and truly want more for their businesses and their selves. 219.508.2859

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How Utilizing an Answering Service Can Keep Your Business Growing Even in a Sluggish Economy

Even in a sluggish economy there are smart solutions that can help grow your business or better service your business, to keep or add to your client/patient database. Let us start with one solution that is not utilized often enough by companies and medical practices. Many progressive companies and practices utilize the services of an answering service. Why's that, you may ask? It's simple: they understand the importance of staying in touch with their customer, clients or patients whenever it's necessary for them to call their company or medical facility. Or at a minimum, allow them an after hour calling service option for their callers. They realize servicing these calls either on an overflow or after hours basis at times is not only necessary, but a value-added service. Another reason why is to seamlessly have their calls covered. What company/practice can afford to miss a call?

Industry leading answering service companies have been providing a wide array of services for companies and medical professionals/practices for as long as the telephone has been a business tool. They are well aware that the first voice a customer/prospect/patient hears is important.

A sour tone, an unfriendly voice doesn't help your business in any way. Nor does hearing a voicemail message or that recorded "Our offices are now closed" message. The best answering service only hires and offers to its clients the best trained and articulate operators in the industry. Answering service companies are well aware that the voice they first hear truly matters.

Answering services exist that are well suited to help you better service and sell your business/practice. These services include: a complete call center, voicemail service, fax to e-mail service, business systems installation of phones from cable to phone selection and installation to creating your telecom infrastructure.

The best answering service companies have grown successful by listening attentively to their clients and offering them services they've truly needed. Your business or practice can and should do the same. Whether you need overflow call coverage after hours or at a peak seasonal selling time, you cannot afford to miss any calls. A mail order catalog company I know utilized the answering service solution and their sales grow. How? Well, while their sales staff was asleep, answering service operators were taking their calls after hours, especially from the west coast clients and prospects that had that recently received their new catalog in the mail.Their answering service was capable of servicing these calls and even helping people navigate on the company's web site and providing some helpful product information. When the sales staff arrived in the morning there were numerous messages left for all of their sales representatives. As a result, many of those calls received and handled by the answering service lead to actual sales.

What too many companies overlook is that a quality and professional answering service can practically become a partner, a sales and service partner without any legal paperwork or percentages owed or owned by another individual. And that's how any business or practice can creatively grow their business.

A reliable and well established answering service company is capable of being that partner. They can successfully play that role for you at an affordable price, offer flexible billing options and provide all the expensive new technology and telecom equipment, along with a skilled staff of operators that will be available when you need them. The answering service that your company chooses should back-up their services with a skilled staff of customer service and IT professionals. You shouldn't feel pressured you into signing any long-term contracts. Your answering service should want to earn your business over the long-term. And that to me is a good and old-fashioned way of doing business the right way. Good and trusted relationships over time usually pay off in more ways than one.

An answering service can also be your virtual office service provider. Virtual Office companies allow smaller companies or businesses and practices of one or two people, to appear bigger, which often times is better. Especially if your company is competing for a big piece of business and you can't afford to come often as a 1-2 person business. More importantly, an answering service will cover your calls when need be and to relay those important incoming messages in a variety of ways; via e-mail, phone or PDA. This excellent, no need to worry call coverage allows you to be out more often with your important clients or prospects which obviously is the prime way to grow your business.

Okay, you can't wait for that small stimulus check and hope fully you'll put it to good use. Or for business sake, utilizing an answering service can be a think outside the box approach as well as creative solution to partner with a productive service company to grow your business.

Robert Porter is the President and CEO of 1-800 We Answer Answering Service, a full service telecommunications company providing a complete range of answering service, call center, voice mail, fax, mail receiving, ordertaking, telemarketing and phone system services to businesses and individuals.

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5 Steps To Help Fail-Proof Your Growing Service Business

Business startup and failure rates are scary...

In The USA...

- Every Year Over 1 Million People Start A Business

- By The End Of The First Year 40% Of Them Will Be Out Of Business

- Within 5 Years More Than 80% (800,000) Of These Businesses Will Have Failed

(Source: The eMyth Revisited, Michal E Gerber, US Department of Commerce)

In The UK...

- 2003 Saw 423,100 New Businesses In England & Wales Startup

- Over Half of All New Firms Fail In The First 3 Years

- At Least 211,550 Of These Businesses Will Have Failed Before The End Of 2006

(Source: Barclays SME Market Research Team England & Wales Statistics Based On Business Current Account Customers)

Unfortunately more and more people are being encouraged to go it alone by government agencies and banks while being given out-dated advice that doesn't actually work.

The advisors in these organisations typically have experience in larger production / manufacturing / financial businesses and share marketing advice that really doesn't work for the majority of small service-based businesses today.

Their text-book marketing principles simply do not translate to businesses with limited money to invest in advertising, direct mail and telesales.

In many cases these advisors are telling people how to run a business even though they're actually working for a bank or government agency themselves. They have no real experience spending their own money to grow a business.

Survival and inevitable success means being lean, mean and focused on getting a genuine result (in the form of profit) from the time and money you invest.

So here are 5 tips you can use to take the power back and begin "fail proofing" your growing business today.

#1. Question "Experts" Thoroughly

Be wary of government funded trainers and / or advisors put forward by banks.

These people, in many cases, don't have a clue what its like to run and grow their own business. Make it your job to "suss them out" before taking anything they tell you too seriously.

Some questions that I like...

What's your experience of starting and running a small business?

Have you actually spent your own money trying to make a business work?

What mistakes have you made? What lessons can I learn from your experience?

Will this advice / support / idea cost me money or make me money?

Who really benefits when I take the course of action you're recommending?

#2. Model Excellent Businesses

Now by this I don't mean simply copy random things they do.

Just because the boss of a successful firm like yours drives a brand-new Bentley it doesn't mean you should rush out and buy one too. That won't guarantee success.

You're looking to find the things that she did in order to afford the Bentley in the first place.

So find out as much about their processes and systems as you can and then look for evidence to support applying similar things that work for them to your business.

Subscribe to their mailing list. Visit their premises. Talk to their staff. Talk to their customers. Read their ads (or notice that they don't advertise). Network with them.

You can learn just as much from non-competing businesses too. So why not set up a support / learning group or see if a successful entrepreneur would be able to mentor you.

#3. Have A BIG Goal

Big goals, by definition, should be easier to hit than small goals. So don't think small - think big.

After nearly 8 years in business I still like to set regular, big, 90 day goals. I call these goals SHAGs - Short Hairy Audacious Goals.

Too many businesses focus on surviving. They think in terms of what they don't want. They miss the opportunity to really succeed and then get what they were desperately trying to avoid - failure!

Focusing on what you don't want really doesn't work. If you don't want to fail you should focus on succeeding in a big way.

#4. Improve Constantly

Have goals and set targets. Know what outcomes you want and quantify them where possible.

Then work towards your goals using the following cycle...

1. Implement (Do Something) 2. Measure (Test & Review) 3. Improve (Learn & Adjust)

As my friend and firewalk trainer Sanjay Shah says, if you simply improve by 1 percent a day, you'll have improved 300 percent (allowing for holidays) in a year!

#5. Don't Follow The Crowd

Look, we both know most businesses fail so don't do what most other businesses do or you'll get the same results.

Don't just advertise because every other business seems to advertise. Make sure advertising will make you money.

Don't just do telesales because that happens to be the service your local Chamber of Commerce is selling.

Don't measure turnover when profit and cashflow is usually more important.

Don't take on staff just because other businesses believe more people equals growth. More people often just means less profit!

Don't do the same thing, in the same way, to the same people as every other business like yours.

Do something different!

4 Out Of 5 Small Businesses Go Bust Inside 5 Years! Finally - A Guaranteed Way To Make Sure You're Not One Of Them... http://www.leanmarketing.co.uk/toolbooks

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Crittercism rides the growing mobile app services boom

Increasingly, as the mobile app economy grows, there’s an emerging opportunity in mobile development support services helping to make the lives of app developers easier. It’s a big market that spans everything from app discovery, monetization and distribution to back-end support, retention tools and analytics.

Crittercism, an AngelPad start-up, is getting in on the action with a user diagnosis and support tool that helps developers track app crashes and address user complaints and bug reports. The support platform, which has had more than 1 million installs since going into beta on iOS in January, is now open to all iOS developers and is also available on Android. The San Francisco company today announced that it has lined up an undisclosed investment from Kleiner Perkins, Google Ventures, Opus Capital, Shasta Ventures and AOL Ventures.

The impressive list of investors underscores the growing opportunity in this kind of particular app support and the larger market of serving developers. A recent research2guidance report forecast that the mobile application development services market will grow to $100 billion by 2015. Though almost all of that money today goes toward app coding and design, 30 percent of the revenue by 2015 is expected to be from maintenance, analytics, distribution and extension services.

Crittercism’s value proposition is that it helps developers get valuable information about app crashes and helps funnel complaints to community forums, where the developer and other users can help address the problem. Crittercism provides a plug-in that communicates with a cloud service, which diagnoses app crashes and recreates the conditions during the actual failure. That in itself is helpful for developers, especially Android programmers dealing with a plethora of devices, to understand why an app might be crashing.

But Crittercism also allows developers to create a support forum to communicate with users directly in the app, so they can report their issues and have their questions answered. This helps users from punishing an app with a bad review or rating, which can often happen, even with popular apps. And it also allows the developer to inform users of fixes and updates and enables them to even follow-up with users who have stopped using an app.

“What users need is a place to reach out to a developer for customer support so we’re bringing that into the application,” said founder and CEO Andrew Levy. “This is all about helping the developers diagnose better and provide better support to keep users engaged and to drive better sales.”

There are currently a lot of analytics and advertising options for developers. And more recently, we’re seeing monetization and distribution services like Tapjoy and W3i step up as well as back-end providers like StackMob and Kinvey. I just wrote about Pontiflex, which helps developers retain users using an email tool. With the market for apps exploding and mobile app store revenue expected to hit $58 billion by 2014, there’s going to be big money in support services, because not everyone has the funds, time or expertise to do all these things well. So I wouldn’t be surprised to see more companies like Crittercism pop up and more VCs betting on them.

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