Customer Care Part 2

As we draw towards the holiday season, perhaps we should take a look at our customer care and some of the good decisions and some of the bad that we may have made during the past year. While not attributed to any specific business or person, these cases may help all of us make the New Year a more rewarding one for everyone.

Who thought that it was a good decision to broadcast how wonderful customer service can be and then not follow the example given? If we tell everyone how great our customer service is, we should at least acknowledge our own faults and mistakes. If we proclaim how sanitary and safe our facilities are, we cannot then avoid criticism about additional problems that our customers may have. We could at least help them recover their status as it was before they suffered at our hands.

Who sold all these businesses on the voice mail greeting: “Your call is very important to us”? Hearing it multiple times each day gets really irritating and only means that we will be on hold for far longer than we should be. If we really record calls as we claim to do, we would know how irritating some of our customer service conversations may be or how happy our customers are to sit on hold for more than 5 minutes.

“We are experiencing busier than normal customer service call volumes” is not an acceptable excuse for long waits on hold. Either hire enough people to solve the problem calls for customers or prevent the problems from happening in the first place. In addition, training customer service representatives before they take calls might be a great idea to build customer loyalty.

How many people can we say “thank you” to in one day? We should try to do so each and every day. Sure beats what we are currently doing, doesn’t cost us much, and might even make us happier. In addition, how about starting a conversation with a total stranger the next time we have a spare moment in a coffee shop or business. Treating receptionists like we don’t have time for them does not work as well for us as being nice instead.

My friend, Jon Turino always has time to chat with others, give them advice and encouragement, and discuss what they are doing versus what they should do in their business. His knowledge and help are invaluable, but not everyone will seek him out and spend some time with him. If we have mentor type people in our circle, we should always make time to ask them about what they need and how we can assist them. It is only common courtesy. Thank you Jon for caring about everyone.

When we meet new potential networking partners, ask them what they do, how they do it, and what they need. Otherwise we cannot introduce anyone to them that may be a good fit for either person. Next time we sit down to chat with anyone, see who can ask the other person the most questions about themselves. It would be rewarding and fun.

Gratitude Marketing can be the greatest part of our customer care. Live it and teach it to others, and karma will reward all of us with success. Our customers, clients, prospects, and partners will thank us, and more potential partners will flock to us. We may have to discover ways to handle more customers, and that would be a very good thing. Please leave me your comments, or email me at Jim@JimTeasley.com, or call me at 360-314-8691.