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The recipe for customer satisfaction lies in the customer service training of your employees.

360-Degree Feedback

I read a quote the other day that really stuck with me. In the book Nuts! Southwest Airlines’ Crazy Recipe for Business and Personal Success, authors Kevin and Jackie Freiberg make a statement about Southwest employees “serving the person behind the need”.

I love this quote and am going to start using it in our customer service training. Serving the person behind the need implies that whenever a staff member is faced with a customer issue or concern, before dealing with the issue at hand, they should first think about the person behind the need.

What are they feeling? How do they see the issue at hand? (more…)

Keep Loyal Customers Loyal by Being Dependable and Stocking Essential Items

From Flickr - avilon_music

Become dependable to your customers in the services and products you offer and you’ll go a long way to keep your customers loyal to your company.

Let me illustrate my point.

A few weeks ago I needed a car wash and drove to the local car wash I’ve gone to for years. I parked the truck, walked inside to purchase my car wash only to find out that they ran out of soap for the touchless car wash. Can you imagine? The entire car wash shut down, because they ran out of soap? As I walked out frustrated, I was thinking to myself; “How can you run out of soap at a car wash? If it was my car wash, I’d always make sure that I have at least a month’s supply at all times. Wow much can it cost to inventory soap, especially if you run a busy car wash?!” (more…)

Retain customer loyalty even after negative feedback with creative notes of appreciation.

Nurse Next Door, a Vancouver based senior care company uses the humble pie approach to keeping valued, albeit sometimes, complaining customers. Each time they receive a complaint, they send out a freshly baked pie with a message that says “We have messed up, and we are humbled.”

The firm estimates that they have kept over $90,000 worth of business for the cost of approximately $1,300 worth of pies over the years. What an innovative idea! Now that’s something that their customers will always remember.

We’ve all heard that keeping an existing customer is much less costly than trying to acquire a new one.  So what is in your program for those customers who might have been unhappy with the service they received from your company? (more…)

Demonstrate the value of your customers and get rid of all negative comments

Do you and all your staff love all your customers? Do your customers feel as though they are being hugged every time they come into your business? As John DiJulius would say “If you told your customers that they can pay your company what ever they felt the service was worth, what would happen?” Would you get paid for the services delivered? Would you get paid more? If this thought makes you cringe, then maybe your company needs an attitude adjustment. Maybe you are the one who needs the attitude adjustment. (more…)

Bounce back and recover customer loyalty after a bad experience

You want customers talking positively about you spreading the great word of mouth about your store. According to Janelle Barlow and Claus Moller, authors of A Complaint Is a Gift: Recovering Customer Loyalty When Things Go Wrong describe research states a full 25% of positive customer service stories that people tell started out the wrong way or from complaints. The act of converting a complaining customer into a loyal customer is called “Service Recovery”. (more…)